Streets are full of cracker waste generated after Diwali, including wrappers of sweet boxes, and rocket cases. The huge amount of trash generated after the festival is not even recycled.

To encourage recycling of waste, Communitree, a Chennai based NGO is collecting waste parts of crackers such as outer shells of rockets, big flower pots, and cylindrical bombs that are more than five to six inches in size to plant saplings.

The founder of Communitree, Hafiz Khan, said that they could not go from house to house asking everyone to stop bursting crackers. It is more about individual choices. Although, they have appealed citizens to be responsible enough towards the environment. Their organisation has reached out to people to ask for firecracker waste so that it could be utilized to plant saplings.

Till date, the NGO has collected up to 50,000 cases. One can even hand over the cases and leave them. It is not compulsory to take the planted saplings back home. All the plants are grown in their nursery which is located on the outskirts of Chennai. Later, when the saplings grow up to five feet, they could be planted in different places.

Hafiz said that the cases made of strong cardboard are considered excellent to grow saplings. The cardboard retains the moisture content when water is poured, and it is easy to maintain. After the seed germinates, one can directly plant it in the soil, reported The New Indian Express.

The saplings consist of different varieties including neem, beech, jackfruit, guava, amla and others. Last year, they had collected 27,000 firecracker cases, their next aim is to collect 80,000 cases.

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