Trees happen to be our closest relatives. What they exhale, we inhale. What we exhale, they inhale. This transaction is on all the time. Trees provide so many benefits to our everyday lives. They filter clean air, provide fresh drinking water, help curb climate change, and create homes for thousands of species of plants and animals.
In a bid to save trees and help the environment from deteriorating any further, a team of people is removing foreign objects like nails and staple pins from trees in Bengaluru.
Vinod Kartavya, an assistant scientist at Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has taken on a noble mission- to free the trees in the city of nails and posters. Let’s take a moment to appreciate this man for his efforts to protect the environment by coming up with a brilliant initiative.
The aim of removing pins and nails from trees is to save trees. Kartavya along with five of his friends began this initiative after he himself suffered a minor accident from a nail stuck to a tree.
Discussing his initiative, Kartavya said, “Recently I was leaning on a tree and a nail sticking out of it hurt the back of my head. I removed the nail and noticed that nearly all the trees in Sampangiram Nagar ward were damaged like this with posters and advertisements. After this, my friends and I decided that we would spend a few hours every Sunday removing the foreign objects.”
Following that accident, Kartavya decided not to let others get hurt. “As per the Tree Protection Act and Bangalore municipal Act, sticking posters on trees is illegal. We have also posted a ‘Nail Free Tree’ challenge on social media, encouraging people to post their photos after removing nails from trees. We are getting a good response”, said Kartavya.
It was reported that during their mission last Sunday, they found 1,000 to 2,000 staple pins on trees, and surprisingly more than 250 nails on a single tree.
Kartavya said, “Last Sunday we went to K G Road. Each tree had around 1,000 to 2,000 staple pins and 250 nails. It was a huge task. It took three hours, 7:00 am to 10:00 am, just to clean seven trees.”
He is also hopeful that as they will keep doing this, more people will join in and help grow the initiative further. Kartavya’s noble work has been widely praised by social media users. One of the users said that unless the government comes down harshly on those trying to disfigure these trees, there won’t be much change visible in the attitude of people.
