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40 garbage ATMs to be installed in Pune city in 3 years
These garbage ATMs will mostly be installed at places like JM road, Shaniwarwada, Senapati Bapat road, Fergusson College road and Pune station in the first phase and work for installation has begun, say officials
The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) will be setting up ten garbage ATMs in the city following the footsteps of New Delhi and Varanasi.
A private agency Ecomax Go, a startup based in Delhi, has approached the PMC to set up these ATMs.
“The company will install 40 such ATMs in the city in the next three years and right now they plan to provide ten machines,” said Hemant Rasne, chairman of the standing committee.
“PMC has been approached by a private company to install the waste collection units across Pune city where these plastic and glass bottles will be accepted. A person will be paid ₹1 per plastic bottle while ₹3 per glass bottle,” he said.
Shedding further light on the ATMs, Anukrati Khera, finance head, Ecomax Go, said, “These ATM kiosks which are worth ₹6 lakh each are set up in 6x4 space which will be put up in locations where there is maximum footfall and publicly accessible. We are still doing recce for the locations in the city.”
These kiosks will also accept plastic wrappers and cans for which ( ₹2 for cans and 20 paise for wrappers will be deposited in the account).
All this money will be credited into the depositor’s bank account directly.
According to PMC solid waste management officials, these ATMs will mostly be installed at places like JM road, Shaniwarwada, Senapati Bapat road, Fergusson College road and Pune station in the first phase and work for installation has begun.
Earlier too PMC had taken an initiative for plastic bottle collection units which failed to take off.
The PMC had proposed to open 200 such centres in the city where individual households can give their recyclable/non-recyclable waste. They had PET bottle-crushing machines have already installed at 20 locations having high pedestrian footfalls but later were changed to multi-utility kiosks.
