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Priest on mission to save Sabarimala from plastic threat: Rediff.com News
- Shobha Warrier in Chennai
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incidents in the last couple of years made Sreejith E Namboodiri, a priest in an Ayyappan temple in Chennai, take a vow that he would do something actively to free the forest in Sabarimala from plastic.
That was how he decided to distribute and popularise 'plastic-free' irumudi kettu (which Ayyappa devotees carry on their heads on the pilgrimage). "These days, Ayyappa devotees buy a kit with lots of plastic packets inside and after the darshan, throw away all the plastic packets there. This contaminates the forest permanently. So, what we do here is, educate all the Ayyappa devotees to pack all the items in butter paper instead of polythene. They also buy cheap raincoats (made of plastic) and throw them away at the foothills," he said.
Namboodiri and three others (T R Anantha Padmanabhan, Bhaskaran Guruswamy and Krishna Kumar) have joined hands and distributed 10,000 pamphlets at various temples urging Ayyappa devotees to keep Sabarimala clean and plastic-free.
- Namboodiri feels the new initiative started by the Devaswom Board of giving Re 1 to anyone who gives them a plastic bottle, is admirable. "Even if the devotees throw away the bottles, there may be poor people there who will collect them for money. They can make Rs 100 a day if they collect 100 bottles," he said.
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