Civic body plans to lay roads with plastic waste

Vijayawada: The Vijayawada Municipal Corporation is planning to set up kiosks at all important centres in the city to collect plastic waste and thereby use using it to lay roads. Under the programme, people can voluntarily deposit the plastic waste in their houses at nearby kiosks. The project is likely to be implemented in a month or two.

It may be noted that the Central government banned usage of plastic from July 2022 and single use plastic from December last year. However, one can see usage of plastic bags everywhere, though officials fine the petty vendors occasionally for supplying goods in plastic covers to customers.

The petty street vendors are faulting the officials for imposing fine leaving multinational companies which are still using plastic bottles and products. Responding to this, an official of Vijayawada Municipal Corporation, assistant commissioner (projects) Satyavathi said that they had started identifying places in the city to set up special kiosks to collect plastic waste, where people can voluntarily deposit the plastic waste.

She said that an old building was already identified in the heart of the city to store the plastic waste, which will then by recycled for using as a layer in road construction. She said once the road laying was completed, it will serve to bring awareness among people to stop using plastic. The official said a number of awareness programmes were being conducted in educational institutions and through mobile waste collecting units in the city. As part of this, thousands of cloth bags were distributed to people.

A shopkeeper Satyam in Gandhinagar, Vijayawada, said that in recent days there was a change in mindset of people and some shoppers started bringing cloth bags to purchase provisions. "However, most of people should follow this principle of not using plastic bags," he opined.