1,600 fines during Delhi anti-plastic drive
The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has seized over 14,164kg of banned plastic items and issued 1,596 challans during the “100 days to beat plastic” campaign
The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has seized over 14,164kg of banned plastic items and issued 1,596 challans during the “100 days to beat plastic” campaign that culminated on Saturday to mark International Earth Day, data from the civic body shows.
Delhi lieutenant governor VK Saxena launched the drive at Baansera near Sarai Kala Khan to reduce single-use plastic (SUP) in the Capital on January 21.
The zone-wise distribution of the action taken against violators shows that the most amount of plastic – 2,080kg – was seized from Rohini, followed by 1,898kg from the south zone, 1,632kg from the west, and 1,592kg from east Delhi’s Shahadra. The three zones, where the least amount of plastic was seized, include Keshavpuram, central Delhi, and Karol Bagh.
The action taken report from the 12 administrative zones under the corporation said that the civic body also undertook initiatives to declare various parks, malls, weekly markets, educational institutes, and eateries as SUP-free zones.
The civic body had limited success convincing weekly markets to give up single-use plastic. The MCD report said that around 132 weekly markets were considered in the campaign but only 23 sites were declared SUP-free, including the nine weekly markets in Rohini, five each in central and Shahadra north, and four in Najafgarh.
A senior municipal corporation official said that during the campaign, the civic body installed around 34 PET Bottle Crusher machines in high-footfall locations.
“The 14,164kg seized plastic has been sent to authorised recyclers to make plastic benches, boards, and t-shirts. We targeted parks, malls, weekly markets, community centres, schools, universities, and restaurants to become SUP-free in these 100 days. MCD also launched 600 Vikalp stalls across MCD areas where consumers could borrow a cloth bag (by depositing ₹20),” the official added.
Mayor Shelly Oberoi said that there needs to be collective responsibility for global challenges like climate crisis, global warming, and the pollution caused by plastic. “The World Economic Forum has said in its report that about 56 lakh tonne plastic waste is generated annually in India. We have to start many new initiatives together so we can end this problem by adopting new strategies to end SUP,” the mayor said.