Tiranga rally leaves tonnes of banned plastic behind

Rajendranagar : The Tiranga rally organised recently from Mir Alam Lake to Shastripuram against CAA and NRC has left tonnes of plastic garbage behind. It brought to the fore the least impact of the ban on single-use plastic in the city.

According to locals, a few hours of rally the previous Friday turned the entire stretch from Mir Alam Lake to Shastripuram and Mir Alam to Zoo Park into a 'sea of plastic' with water bottles, butter milk packets and water packets littered on both the sides of the five kilometer stretch.

Though GHMC has been conducting several drives across the city against plastic use fervently, the sea of plastic left after the Tiranga rally shows the real picture that all kinds of plastic use are going unabated. Also, the public representatives and NGOs have been distributing clothe bags to citizens and others. Many have questioned the unpreparedness of the GHMC even as they were alerted about the rally a week before.

"When they are fully aware of the intended rally on the day, they could have avoided the situation by taking up some pre-emptive measures. They could have informed the people much earlier to avoid plastic stuff carrying water and instead set up water supply points at various location facilitating the people to quench their thirst on the route," questioned Jitender, a social activist from Attapur. "They didn't even arrange garbage bins wayside to allow protestors to dispose of the plastic bottles and packets into the bins without resorting to littering on the stretch," he lamented.

Expressing despair over the plastic garbage menace due to excessive use of plastic water bottles and packets, a GHMC sanitary official said, "We have toiled hard from the morning to remove heaps of plastic garbage next day of the rally as both the sides of the road were littered with water bottles and packets. It took a full 2-day and 20 sanitary staff to clean up the area."

It may be mentioned here that on October 16, 2019, the Department of Municipal Administration had issued a circular citing a ban on single use plastic in all the municipalities in the state.

To this, the GHMC had embarked on drives against single-use plastic in the city and more so the officials even imposed fines on the commercial institutions using or throwing the plastic in their neighbour. During the drive GHMC Rajendranagar was the forerunner in bringing awareness among the people and even imposed penalties on commercial institutions against the use of plastic carry bags.

Even the officials impounded several plastic manufacturing units in Tata Nagar, Katedhan and around Shastripuram area which comes under its Rajendranagar. However, much to the surprise of everyone all the exercises unfurled against the use of plastics few months ago was now put on hold and the mundane efforts displayed during the drive has now appeared as mere eyewash.