Students urged to turn plastic waste into enterprise through ‘reKlaim’

Kolkata: A new initiative, reKlaim, aims to encourage college students to adopt sustainable habits while exploring social entrepreneurship based on waste management.

The programme seeks to promote the principles of a circular economy by motivating students to view waste not merely as a problem but as a potential resource. It will begin with a campus-level awareness drive, followed by reKlaim 26, an inter-college competition centred on collecting discarded plastic.

Participating students will gather plastic waste from their surroundings and submit it to the organisers for assessment. Colleges that collect plastic beyond a prescribed threshold will receive support to set up Waste-to-Wealth enterprises on their campuses.

In its initial phase, the initiative focuses on plastic, one of the most visible forms of urban waste.

Organisers say hands-on engagement will help students understand the scale of plastic pollution, its environmental impact and the possibilities of recycling and reuse.

In the second phase, student-led enterprises will be incubated to convert collected plastic into usable merchandise. These ventures are expected to run workshops on waste management and develop financially sustainable models around recycling and value creation.

Programme director Animesh Goswami said the project aims to promote a circular economy through a social enterprise model that emphasises adoption and profitability. Core team member Jaydip Mukherjee added that involving college students could help drive behavioural change and wider acceptance of recycled products.

By linking environmental action with entrepreneurship, reKlaim hopes to transform student participation into long-term innovation and practical solutions to plastic waste.