Bhubaneswar: The civic body has used the Anjali Children's Festival to spread awareness about effective management of waste.

The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation has collaborated with various artists and created a sculpture using discarded electronic materials that at the fest. The sculpture that has a hand pointing out to nature intends to spread the message to save the Earth.

The plan is to create a set-up that will draw attention and spread awareness on effective management of electronic waste.

The corporation wants to convey message that the waste generator should take responsibility of its proper disposal.

"One of the themes of Anjali this time is 'zero waste'. It means no generation of waste on the premises. The theme aimed to generate awareness among the students for effective management of waste. We have put up colour bins and are also holding workshops to sensitise everyone on the issue," said Bijayan Das, the sculptor.

He said they had come up with an idea to create a set-up out of electronic waste, one of the most hazardous and difficult to dispose of.

"We have made the structure out of iron. We are collecting various e-waste materials such as laptop and mouse to add those to the structure. This will be used to complete the sculpture," said Das.

Sources said the civic body would install the sculpture at one of the major junctions in the city. "The civic body is interested in taking over the sculpture after the festival. They will install it at some junction," said Das.

The civic body is making efforts to have a proper system for the management of e-waste in the city.

"We have already partnered with International Finance Corporation for management of e-waste. We are doing our best to sensitise the people on the same through such platforms," said mayor Ananta Narayan Jena.

According to the state pollution control board, the government generates roughly 5,000 tonnes of electronic waste a year, a major chunk of which is being generated in Bhubaneswar every year.

At present, there is no exact data on how much e-waste the city generates, but the civic body is in the process of creating a database for the same.