War on single-use plastic in Delhi begins today

New Delhi

New Delhi

HT Image

The municipal corporations of Delhi, in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Independence Day call to ban use of single-use plastic, have lined up a slew of awareness drives on Tuesday — Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary.

The PM had asked authorities across India to “come up with a definitive step by October 2” in his Independence Day speech.

Besides the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled municipal corporations of Delhi, the Aam Aadmi Party-led Delhi government has also shown enthusiasm on the subject. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said, “We are working on a plan to phase out single use plastic.”

It will, however, still take the government sometime to notify the Plastic Waste Management bylaws for the city, senior officials said.

Delhi’s chief secretary Vijay Dev on Tuesday made the entire staff of the secretariat pledge to “give up single-use plastic in office and in personal capacity”. Senior goverment officials said from October 2, they will “raise awareness against single-use plastic during their ongoing campaign on ‘geela kooda, sookha kooda’ (segregation of organic and plastic waste, at household level).”

“The first phase of the single-use plastic campaign will primarily be ads in newspaper and outdoor media. The subsequent phases will be strategised soon,” a government official said.

The three municipal corporations, meanwhile, have scheduled a number of plogging drives in prominent areas of the city which would be led by the commissioners themselves. The Union ministry of housing and urban affairs had asked the civic bodies to start plogging — a Swedish exercise, which involves picking up softdrink bottles and food wrappers while jogging.

The South Delhi Municipal Corporation said it will hold 44 different plogging runs, the biggest of which will begin at Zafar Mahal DTC Bus Stand (Mehrauli), Madipur and Dada Dev Temple (Dwarka). The corporation also declared four schools — DPS (Mathura Road) DPS (Vasant Kunj), Kendriya Vidyalya (Andrews Ganj) and Birla Vidya Niketan (Pushpa Vihar) — as plastic-free after administering pledges to the faculty and students.

Meanwhile, north corporation commissioner Varsha Joshi said they had set up several plastic collection and recycling centres — in collaboration with NGOs like Chintan — where people have already deposited at least 25 tonnes of plastic waste.

“Besides this, we are looking at ways to add plastic waste in hot bitumen for paving roads, which are more durable and last longer,” she said.

The East Delhi Municipal Corporation will lead a plogging run at V3S Mall in Laxmi Nagar, the corporation’s mayor Anju Kamal Kant said.

ENDS