JK Paper launches ‘BACK TO SOIL’ Green Campaign in Bengaluru
Bangalore: With a view to spread awareness about paper production practices, India’s largest producer of branded copier paper, JK Paper, a unit of JK Organisation, initiated an innovative ‘BACK TO SOIL’ campaign, at the Bhavan Press School in Bangalore on Monday, 17 September. The green initiative sought to bring educational institutions and students on a platform to discuss eco-friendly solutions and tree plantation approaches in our daily lives.
It was an interactive session that engaged school students in discussing topics such as the present environment degradation, saving the planet, planting trees and the eco-friendly nature of paper production and its usage. The aim of the initiative is to reach out to 10,000 school students and educate them about the role of paper in resolving environmental issues.
The students would write messages using plantable seed pencils to friends and neighbours on plantable seed postcards. The postcards are made of two sets of seed paper containing tulsi and marigold seeds. The pencils are also biodegradable with tomato seeds at the ends that can be planted once the lead is over. As many as 20,000 saplings will make way into Bangalore homes over the next two weeks. JK Paper will gift 300 saplings, as part of the project, to the institutes to grow them in their premises.
Organised by Delhi-based organisation ‘Battees’ and supported by the Rotary District 3190 and Interact 3190, the project received an overwhelming response from the schools. Some of the schools that have embraced the initiative are Nagarjuna School, Camlin English School, Jindal School, Widia School and Sarvagna School, among others. Schools are welcome to ask us to come and conduct this activity for free in their premises.
Leading the session was Debasish Ganguly, General Manager, Marketing & Communication, JK Paper, who highlighted the close connection of paper in our daily lives. Speaking on the occasion, he said, “Even though we have all grown up with paper and have benefitted a lot from it, we sometimes feel guilty about using it. This is probably because we are regularly confronted by concepts that actually are not really true. We need to remember that Paper is a preferred medium of communication because we ‘feel’ the paper; we love to read from the paper, make notes through ‘marking on it’. The same cannot be said of other medium because with paper, it is sporadic and with others it is not so. Let paper take its rightful place in your life and do not feel guilty about using it. Paper is quite simply as relevant today as it ever was. You should be raring to write, desperate to doodle and proud to print! While it sounds counter-intuitive, the more paper we use, the more trees are grown. JK Paper alone distributes over 80 million seedlings every year.”
In contrary to common myths around paper production such as deforestation, biodegradability and recyclable aspects, the session threw light on non-forest trees like Casuarina and Subabul that are used for making paper and the cultivation of which forms the livelihood of millions of marginal farmers.
JK Paper plants five trees for every tree harvested to make paper, thereby increasing the green cover of the country.
Busting the myths surrounding this, Santosh Wakhloo, Vice President, Marketing & Sales, JK Paper, added, “Paper as a category faces the myth that it is non-environment friendly. To dispel this myth, we conduct school activation programmes like Back To Soil, DaakRoom, etc. to engage in a dialogue with these children and spread awareness about the actual facts and goodness of paper.”
In addition to the above initiative, JK is also pursuing other responsible projects like the enrichment of green cover through its Social Farm Forestry drive, process innovation, re-use and minimising waste water discharge, recycling and better technology to reduce fresh water consumption and greenhouse gas release.