Kalimpong, March 6: Himalayan Organisation for People?s Education (Hope) plans to involve residents and unemployed youth in a project to keep the town clean.

?We have just started a pilot project at Topkhana, here, yesterday,? said president of Hope C.K. Shrestra. ?Depending on the success of the project there, we plan to carry it out in other areas, too.?

The plan is simple. One hundred households in Topkhana have been given two plastic gunnysacks each and the residents asked to put recyclable waste (mainly different kinds of plastic containers) and scrap in one bag and the other kind of refuse in the second.

Hope has linked up with a local committee to distribute the bags and explain to residents the difference between the two kinds of waste.

Unemployed youth from the locality will be employed to buy the recyclable waste from the households and unload the rest of the garbage at a chosen dumping site, the president said. ?The youngsters will be given a loan of Rs 5,000 each to buy the recyclable waste and scrap,? Shrestra said. He added that Gramin Bank would issue the loans.?

?Our organisation will then carry the waste to the municipality dumping site and buy the plastic containers and scrap from the local youths,? Shrestra said. Hope will sell the recyclable materials in Siliguri and from the profit buy more bags and start the project in other areas, he said.