This Diwali, post photos to show you’re green

An online campaign, ‘ Green Diwali’, has gone viral in recent days. It has been promoting the idea of reducing waste this year’s Diwali.

With a series of “cool” photo shoots, a group of nature lovers have urged the citizens to join a “Green Diwali” movement and say no to crackers and products with wasteful packing. The online campaign has gone viral in recent days that has been promoting the idea of reducing waste this year’s Diwali.

This Diwali “Let’s Go Green” campaign, initiated by documentary film- maker and cinematographer Gurmeet Sapal, brings together a small group of like- minded people who strongly believe that the festival of lights can and must be celebrated in an eco- friendly way.

“Doing a film and triggering a change are different. We thought of a campaign that will make a change. So we started this movement. Visual medium is a strong media and through pictures we wish to spread the message far and wide,” Mr Sapal said.

“Say no to crackers and products with wasteful packing. Like, share, comment, click and upload your own pictures,” is his request on Facebook which has gone viral and more people are joining the campaign. The green Diwali campaign, which was initiated by Mr Sapal in his society in Ghaziabad, extends an open platform for people to join in from all over the world.

"It is very encouraging to see the way the kids are participating," he says.

“The whole idea of the campaign is to reduce the waste,” asserted Mr Sapal, who directed the threepart series Zindagi Abhi Baaki Hai which is the story about how cricketer Yuvraj Singh fought against cancer. “The Yuvraj film was my first experiment with films that lead to change. His was a story that had to be told to create mass awareness on cancer.”.

“We want to upscale it. This is not restricted to any particular society. We are not using any plastic or thermocol plates this time,” he said.

Children in his society have been doing a door- todoor campaign talking to their elders about carrying cotton bags to the Diwali melas so that use of polythene can be reduced and celebrating the festival with diyas, candles and lights and not by bursting crackers.