A pen for the environment

Inspired by the national initiative of ‘One Million Date Palms’, a school in association with a private company is in the path of protecting the environment and inculcating the habit of planting a tree in a rather interesting way.

These children of Al Atthika School Maabela, will be planting hundreds of rain tree seeds after writing pages and pages with a pen at school, which will blossom in less than a year’s time.

Seed Paper Pen, relatively an innovative idea, will allow children to use the pen for their writing tasks and throw the highly biodegradable paper pen in the backyard, which will sprout in a few days time, provided sufficient care is given.

Amal al Hinai, and Amira al Sulaimani, teachers of Al Atthika School said that teaching the children to support the environment has always been a part of their curriculum and this is a wonderful idea to achieve the same.

“We will distribute these seed paper pen among all our 450 students and will ask them to monitor the growth of the same, thus engaging them in various stages of a tree growing”, the teachers added.

“We want to inculcate the habit of planting more trees and be the saviour of our nature. With this seed paper pen, our concept is that the hidden seed can be buried in the soil and once it’s done, within 10 days the paper will biodegrade and the seed will automatically start to sprout”, said Sunny P Zacharia, General Manager, Muscat Green Leaves, the company that was invited to support the cause.

The advantage of the seed paper pens is that the paper can retain water and allow the seed to grow faster. The supporters further said that the good thing with the rain tree which is grown in this area is that once it’s grown full, it can take up to 28 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually.

“We are blessed with a beautiful country and we would like to see the greenery everywhere”, Walan al Hagg, a class 7 student said.

Fatima al Harbi, another student said that the concept will help the present and future generations see more trees around decorating our atypical mountainous terrain. We have a backyard garden at home and we would like to see it grow.

“I’ll not lose the pleasure of writing with a pen at the same time, she is doing something good for the environment”, said Fajar al Naddabi.

“We thought of this because we want to send awareness message among the people basically to use more biodegradable products as well as to promote a habit of preserving the nature among the future generations”, adds Sen Varghese, DGM, Muscat Green Leaves.

He further said that these trees can also help curb pollution and promote healthy lifestyles. Rain trees can grow up to 2 metres in one year. “We want to take this across the country with the support of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries”, adds Sunny.