Bisleri International Pvt. Ltd., the most trusted brand of mineral water for past 50 years in India, created awareness about its CSR initiative ‘Bottles for Change’ at the Tata Mumbai Marathon this Sunday.
Bisleri created a 20 feet long installation made out of 5,000 used plastic bottles and encouraged participants to pledge their support for correct plastic disposal, reuse and recycling.
As athletes and runners ran through ‘Bisleri’s Bottles for change corridor’ created on the running track, under the Princess Street Flyover at TATA Mumbai Marathon 2018, they pledged to recycle with Bisleri’s CSR initiative ‘Bottles for Change’.
On behalf of every runner who ran through the corridor, Bisleri sponsored meals for an entire year to the waste picker’s children who are currently being educated at the PBVS (Parisar Bhagini Vikas Sangh) study centre, Chembur.
Additionally, the marathon also witnessed enthusiastic 100 Bisleri employees running and carrying the placards highlighting the importance of recycle and reuse of plastic.
What is ‘Bottles for Change’?
‘Bottles for Change’ aim to educate the masses that plastic is a miraculous material that can be recycled. And since it can be recycled it is actually good for the environment. As a matter of fact, PET bottles can be recycled to upto 8 times. The problem however lies with incorrect disposal of plastic. ‘Bottles for Change’ initiative appeals society to take a pledge to adopt the right method of plastic disposal. The first step for which is segregating plastic from rest of the garbage.
A recyclable resource like plastic is not a curse but a boon to society that avoids exploiting other resources in nature. Because of its resale value it is an alternative economy for the rag pickers and waste pickers which help to improve their and their family standard of living.
As a part of this initiative, Bisleri conducts plastic collection drives in school, colleges, malls, corporate offices as well as festive and social gatherings. The proceeds from these plastic collection drives goes to Parisar Bhagini Vikas Sangh (PBVS), an all women waste pickers association by the NGO Stree Mukti Sangathana. PBVS addresses the issues of waste management and those of self employed women involved in waste collection tasks. Bisleri along with PBVS, is working towards the welfare of waste pickers’ underprivileged children.
Anjana Ghosh, Director at Marketing, Bisleri International Pvt Ltd. said, “This is the first time that Bisleri has associated with Tata Mumbai marathon and this gave us an exclusive platform to talk about our initiatives, ‘Bottles for Change’. We received an extraordinary response from the participants, who have pledged for recycling of plastic. We endeavor to make a difference through this initiative and educate people on the right disposal of plastic.”
Being the official hydration partner and the expert in the category, Bisleri had setup 25 water stations across the running track, to ensure that all the participants were well hydrated. Overall, Bisleri supplied close to 2 lakhs litres of water for the participants.
In addition to water stations, Dr. Ashish Contractor, an expert in run and sports medicine educated the participants on the indispensable role of hydration pre event on digital medium and at the expo. In addition to this, Bisleri set up two cooling corridorson the track, the water mists helped combat body heat and kept the runners going.
The event witnessed thousands of participants pledging for ‘Bottles for Change’.
