Vijayawada: Waste plastic declines in city

Vijayawada: War on harmful plastic waged by the district administration, Municipal Corporation, NGOs, traders and various sections of people is yielding fruitful results in the city as waste plastic production declined by nearly 50 per cent in the last three months. Vigorous campaign was launched in the city and other parts of district to check the single-use plastic and polythene covers.

Grocery shops, departmental stores, fruits and vegetable vendors, curry points, traders in Rythu Bazaars have stopped sale and use of harmful plastic carry bags and polythene covers.

Instead, jute bags are being used in the city. Denizens too habituated to use jute and cloth bags for the past few months. Waste plastic production too declined in the city giving a good sign that the city is getting free from plastic menace.

Waste plastic recycling plant located in the dumping yard at Ajit Singh Nagar used to get 200 tonnes of plastic per day three months ago and now it is getting only 100 tonnes of waste plastic.

Garbage collected in the city is shifted to the dumping yard in Ajit Singh Nagar, where plastic is segregated for recycling. The Vijayawada Municipal Corporation has allocated land to NGO E Sree Foundation for setting up of Plastic Waste Collection and Recycling Centre at the dumping yard. The plant was set up with the funding of United Nations Development Programme.

The recycling plant is converting the single-use plastic into hard plastic materials, which is used as energy by the cement industries. Recently, some loads of recycled plastic materials sent to cement company for using as energy.

Recycling plant supervisor Samson said the Recycling Plant is receiving 100 tonnes of waste plastic per day against the 200 tonnes of waste plastic per day three months ago.He hoped the waste plastic production will come down in the city as people stopped using harmful plastic and polythene carry bags.

Strict orders were issued to the traders to stop use of single-use plastic carry bags, which constitute major chunk of garbage. Compared to plastic and polythene covers, the price of jute bags is more. Almost all traders are spending more to buy jute bags in order to get away from hefty penalty collected by VMC for violation of rules.

District Collector Md Imtiaz along with the revenue and VMC officials visited Rythu Bazaar at Swarajya Maidan several times and distributed jute and cloth bags free of cost to encourage people to use eco-friendly bags.

Educational institutions, NGOs also canvassed vigorously for use of eco-friendly jute and cloth bags, which is giving fruitful results. With these initiatives, the city will phase out harmful single-use plastic soon.