Dialog schools rugby league 2020 is set to kickoff today (04) starting with St. Peter’s taking on Dharmaraja College Kandy.
But Isipathana College Colombo who was dominating the schools rugby arena for a long time has started an initiative of playing “Green Rugby” by minimizing plastic usage from thie season onwards.
Around 300 bottles are utilized on a game day, which brings about the ground being severely littered after a game.
Approximately 15 to 18 games are played annually (inclusive of league, knock outs and practice games and excluding junior tournaments), which substantially affects the eco-system because of the unreasonable utilisation of plastic bottles.
Under the concept of “Green Rugby”, the Isipathana team will try to use the standard 19L gallon instead of using 1L and 1.5L bottled water.
The gallons will be kept beside the bench and 2 individuals will be assigned to keep refilling around 20 squeeze bottles to be used during a game. After the game, the gallons will be brought back to the school to be handed over to the water distributing agent, who will then hand over a fresh set of gallons for the next game.
The pilot run of this concept was carried out during the Thurstan vs Isipathana Abdul Jabbar Shield game, which turned out to be quite successful.
The Committee hopes to use this as an example so that other schools and sports teams may follow suit. The objective is to make the players as well as others understand the seriousness of plastic pollution and encourage them to reduce the use of plastic, creating eco-friendly alternatives.
The Isipathana Rugby committee has also appointed a panel to observe if these principles are met during matches, as well as to conduct research on improvements that can be made to this initiative and plan to ensure that this project will continue to be a success in the future as well.
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