Daily Times

National University of Medical Sciences (NUMS), has taken initiative to become “Zero Waste Campus,” by adopting Five R strategy referring to “Reduce, Re-use, Recycle, Rot and Raising Awareness” and has pledged not to use anything, contributing to environment degradation.

It coincides with the World Environment Day being observed across the world Today. Many leading universities in the US, UK and Australia have already become Zero Waste Campuses.

Of the “Five R” Pakistan has already become a member of 3R ( Reduce, Reuse and Recycle) Community in 2009 when the Regional 3R Forum in Asia, was established at Japan’s proposal as a platform for broad cooperation on promotion of the 3R – in Asia. But “we have to go a long way as a society to adopt practices to stop being contributors to environment degradation both at institutional and individual level,” said Prof. Azam Chaudhary, Dean of Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities here on Saturday.

“Vice Chancellor of NUMS Lt Gen Syed Muhammad Imran Majeed,HI (M) Retd in his remarks said “climate change is a big challenge which needs an unwavering commitment at the global, national, institutional and individual level. Cognizant of its social responsibility, the university has pledged to go zero waste. Simple practical measures and changes in individual and institutional practices can result in long term impact.”

Climate change has emerged as one of the biggest existential threats in the world today and Pakistan has been ranked seventh among the countries most vulnerable to it. One of the major contributors to this was the pollution caused by generation of huge amounts of waste which ended up in open dumps especially in countries like Pakistan.

NUMS has also planned a webinar on June 9, to create awareness and environment experts were invited to share their views and experiences in this regard.

Educational institutes in this manner could influence behavioral change among societies through mobilization of students and communities.

Azam Chaudhary said the institutions, families and individuals could contribute to a green environment by pledging not to use single-use items, like ballpoints or plastic bags. Only 15 percent of tons of waste created across the globe was recycled while the rest ended up either in sea or dumping sites leading to depletion of our resources.