Bangalore: A five-member Bangalore school team has bagged the Volvo Young Environmentalists Award in a global contest involving participation from 12 countries.

Their project on reducing use of polybags earned them acclaim and they were declared winners of the inaugural award and presented a cash award of $ 10,000 at a ceremony held at Volvo headquarters at Gothenburg in Sweden on September 25.

The team, nick-named “Little Eco-Friends”, was studying at the Sophia's High School when they were enrolled for the award and have since graduated to St Joseph's High School and Sindhi High School.

The winning project by Harshit Agarwal, Safdhar M Adoor, Visesh Vinod, Karan Singhvi and Srihari Sridhar, focused on the hazardous effect that polybags have on the environment and methods of reduction in their use.

According to C A Muddamaiah, administrator of Volvo India, who accompanied the team, their project was chosen for its effectiveness in involving the community in caring for the environment.

A jury chaired by Matilda Ekehorn, a biologist at the World Health Organisation (WHO), evaluated the projects. An Australian team won the runner-up award and a Taiwanese team was adjudged third. Other nations that participated included Canada, Sweden, the UK, Ireland, New Zealand and Russia. The children made a presentation of their projects to the jury.

A Volvo official said that the award was instituted to encourage students to research, present projects and stimulate a dialogue on environmental issues.

PTI