Five Campuses Join Plastic Waste Initiative

UNDP Bangladesh has linked five educational institutions in Tangail, Chattogram and Cox’s Bazar with local recycling entrepreneurs to promote source-level plastic waste segregation and recycling. The initiative goes beyond awareness by creating a practical chain for waste collection, storage, transportation and recycling, supporting a more circular approach to plastic waste management.

More than 730 students, teachers and staff participated in the month-long campaign, reletive source informed on September 29, 2026. The participating institutions received waste-segregation bins and were connected with local recycling entrepreneurs to collect the separated plastic.

The campaign was implemented under the Plastics Circularity Project by UNDP Bangladesh, with funding from The Coca-Cola Foundation and support from the Government of Bangladesh. Young Power in Social Action (YPSA) is the project’s local development partner.

Activities began on August 31 at Bindubasini Government Boys’ High School in Tangail and on September 1 at Mawlana Bhashani Science and Technology University. More than 300 people participated at the two institutions over the two days.

The campaign was then conducted on September 7 and 8 at Kadam Mubarak City Corporation High School and CDA Public School and College in Chattogram, where more than 295 people participated. The closing phase was held on September 28 at Cox’s Bazar Commerce College, with more than 135 participants.

Each institution received 120-liter waste-segregation bins. The bins feature labels in Bangla and use separate colours for biodegradable and non-biodegradable waste.

A key feature of the campaign was connecting the institutions with the next stage of waste management instead of limiting the initiative to awareness activities. Each campus was introduced to a designated local recycling entrepreneur who will collect separated plastic according to a scheduled timetable and send it for recycling.

Each session explained how plastic enters the recovery chain through source-level collection, segregation, storage, transportation and recycling. Discussions also covered how separated plastic reaches the recycling industry through local scrap and waste-material traders.

The sessions introduced the 4R framework—Reduce, Reuse, Recover and Recycle—and highlighted the roles of students, teachers and educational institutions in waste management.

The 80-minute sessions at each institution featured interactive presentations, hands-on waste-segregation games, a rapid-fire quiz, bin handover in the presence of local recyclers and a collective environmental pledge. Quiz winners received plants in clay pots instead of plastic trophies.

Teachers and institutional administrators were encouraged to commit to placing separate bins at important locations across classrooms and campuses, handing over plastic waste separately to collectors, and conducting a weekly cleaning campaign.

Tinku Kumar Bhowmik, head teacher of Kadam Mubarak City Corporation High School, said, “Plastic has become a real source of alarm for us—we are consuming plastic without even knowing it. A school is not only a place to learn mathematics or English; issues that require awareness must also be learned here. Today, alongside the students, we teachers are learning too.”

Md. Jasim Uddin, principal of Cox’s Bazar Commerce College, said efforts to build a plastic-free Bangladesh should begin in educational institutions and that the initiative should start from his college.

Professor Dr. Mahmuda Binte Latif, chairman of the Department of Environmental Science and Resource Management at Mawlana Bhashani Science and Technology University, said the bins would be properly managed and other university departments would be encouraged to join the initiative.

Tafazzal Hossain, head teacher of Bindubasini Government Boys’ High School, said the institution would take initiatives to organize similar programmes every month involving students from different classes.

The organizers said creating a practical waste-management system alongside awareness was one of the campaign’s key objectives. For this reason, each institution received bins and was connected with a designated recycling entrepreneur so that separated plastic could be regularly collected and sent for recycling.

Following the campaign, the amount of plastic collected at the five institutions will be recorded regularly. This will help track not only participation but also the actual quantity of plastic recovered through the campaign.

Activities under the Plastics Circularity Project on plastic waste collection, segregation and recycling will continue in Chattogram, Cox’s Bazar and Tangail.

//DBTech/FIH/BPO/MIS//