'No Kunu' campaign begins at Grandpass
In a bid to combat the persistent garbage problem, a new campaign titled ‘No Kunu’ was launched in Colombo yesterday. The programme was inaugurated in the Grandpass area with volunteers visiting neighbourhoods and educating the people on the importance of keeping their surroundings clean and segregating their garbage.
Small garbage tins to collect food waste as well as polypropylene bags to collect plastic and glass bottles were also distributed. The initiative has the backing of the CMC that has agreed to collect segregated garbage from these areas on a daily basis.
The campaign was launched with corporate assistance.
Taking inspiration from garbage control campaigns successfully con- ducted in Singapore and Norway, organisers behind ‘No Kunu’ will initially launch a campaign with 5-10 corporate pledging support to maintain and support 10 wards as ‘Guardians of the City.’ Under this programme, each corporate body will ensure that a one mile extent of area around their head office or branch office would be kept clean.
The plan is to mobilise employees of corporates who are on board to volunteer one day a month for six months. Working on a roster, they will visit the various ‘ wattes’ in their wards and will help to buy garbage bins and train the residents on recycling.
The campaign hopes to ensure garbage bins are set up in every home, street, watte, beach and forest area and will strongly lobby authorities to impose heavy fines on litterbugs. They also aim to launch a pilot urban slums ‘ clean dream’ campaign with the support of several companies.
The campaign hopes to eventually cover all the provinces.