The Plastic Exchange Store begins its St. Martin journey today(12th Dec’22)
Even though everyone disregards the discarded plastic at St. Martin, Bidyanondo is set to make that plastic valuable. Money will no longer be required to buy daily necessities. The people of St. Martin can now exchange discarded plastic for bags full of grocery. As a result, financial constraints won’t limit their purchase of everyday essentials.
St. Martin’s island is known for its vast ocean with various types of seaweed and colorful corals, but the environment of the sea and the island is in a constant state of deterioration. Inappropriate disposing plastic everywhere, even into the ocean, pollution is increasing at an alarming rate. Both human and marine life are now in danger.
The residents believe that it is the government’s responsibility to protect the environment. But despite the sincere efforts, it is not possible for the government to singlehandedly implement cleaning initiatives and prevent environmental pollution. As a result, the level of plastic pollution in the sea is increasing day by day. Also, since there is no system to pay for or recycle the discarded plastic in St. Martin, the natives consider plastic unnecessary and throw it away.
A group of volunteers has taken up a new initiative to reduce plastic pollution on the island of St. Martin. Under this initiative, a ‘Plastic Exchange Store’ will be set up in Saint Martin Island in collaboration with the district administration. At the store, people can exchange the empty containers or bottles of used plastic products and buy daily necessities including rice, pulses, oil, sugar, and salt. Since this creates an incentive structure in terms of the demand of people’s daily necessities being met, the environmental pollution will be reduced. The “Plastic Exchange Store” will remain open twice a month. People can in turn exchange their stored or collected plastic for necessary goods as per their needs.
With the help of the district administration, volunteers will make a giant plastic monster in Cox’s Bazar with the collected plastic. It is believed that the created monster will be the biggest statue on the beaches of Bangladesh. A monster is a strange creature, which is as terrifying as it is destructive, it threatens the social or moral order of the human world. By creating this monster, Bidyanondo Foundation wants to send a message to the human society that the rate at which the environment is being polluted by plastic is slowly taking the form of a monster. And this monster will pose a threat to human society.
Bidyanondo Foundation is an educational voluntary organization from Bangladesh. To meet the basic needs of orphans and underprivileged children, Bidyanondo is running several regular programs including one-taka meal, distribution of new clothes during winter and Eid, free education program and one-taka treatment. They provide teaching materials along with free tuition. One of their recent initiatives for social welfare is the ‘Plastic Exchange Store’, a store to prevent environmental pollution due to plastic on St. Martin Island. As a result of which, a gigantic monster made of plastic will be placed at Cox’s Bazar. This project has been implemented as a joint initiative of Bidyanondo Foundation and the District Administration, along with the cooperation of the Tourist Police. Asiatic Marketing Communication Limited is responsible for the creative supervision of the entire project.
