In a little town in Telangana’s Mulugu area, an IAS officer, C Narayana Reddy who happens to be the collector of the area, organized challenge between school students alongside some others.
Reddy let them know, “Whoever can gather the highest number of plastic jugs in the zone inside an hour will get a cricket unit as remuneration.”
The motto behind this was to encourage students to collect as much plastic as they can. In 60 minutes, the students gathered around 1,000 plastic containers from the area as little as theirs.
What shocked the authorities was that even a small town like this could create an ample amount of plastic waste. Reddy and the others were stunned to discover the gigantic measure of plastic waste collected.
C Narayana Reddy is the district collector of Mulugu. After this trial with the kids, he decided to direct a similar movement across 174 villages in the region.
1 Kg of Rice For 1 Kg Of Plastic
The above movement triggered a great Idea in the Mind of Reddy about how people can be motivated with rewards to collect plastic and eradicate plastic pollution.
“I will probably stop the utilization of single-utilize plastic in the towns. So we spoke with every one of these towns and disclosed to them that for each 1 kg of plastic that they can furnish us with, we will give them 1 kg of rice,” Reddy said this in a conversation with The Logical Indian.
“Rice is something individuals in rustic territories consistently need. In this way, we figured it would be a motivation that would urge these individuals to keep the town cleans,” he includes.
As individuals became more acquainted about Reddy’s drive, they came forward to contribute rice and energize him on his voyage to make the town’s plastic-free. Reddy ran this programme from October 16 to October 26.
“Starting at now, we have gathered 450 quintals of rice and gift of Rs 6 lakh. We are conveying rice over the towns and gathering the plastic waste from the gram panchayat’s office. On the off chance that we take a gander at the more extensive picture, restricting plastic and not giving the locals an option is uncalled for. In this manner, we requested the administration’s endorsement to set up paper pack making units in the towns, and we ought to get notification from them soon,” Reddy told The Logical Indian.
This was a unique and innovative way adopted by Reddy & his colleagues for encouraging people to help to eradicate plastic pollution in the district. They are not only aiming to collect plastic garbage but are also making efforts to not create single-use plastic in the first place. For this, the district will soon ban the use of ‘Single-Use’ Plastic. Apart from this, Reddy has come up with another idea too.
The authorities have collected a good amount of money during the drive. They are using this money to pay tailors from the district that has also been included in this drive.
During the conversation with Logical India, he said, “With the cash that was given to us, we have enlisted a few tailors in every village. We have requested these tailor that if any villager approached them with any fabric or cloth that they don’t wish to utilize any longer, they should make a bag/sack out of it. The tailors here are making sacks out of the fabric and giving them back to the individuals. We have made around 35,000 sacks along these lines. And we are bearing the cost of stitching.”
Through the program and school exercises, more than 31,000 kg of plastic has been gathered. The activity has furnished ladies and youngsters with employment, as they spend the day gathering plastic waste, and later visit the panchayat’s office to submit it and receive rice consequently.
At first, the locals didn’t show much support since they needed to be certain that we would give them the rice that we guaranteed. When they discovered that we were truly running the program for a more prominent reason, they started putting all the possible efforts to support us. The outcome has been enormous. The towns have been left sparkling clean,” says Reddy.
After the 10-day long program reaches an end, there will be a changeless prohibition on single-utilize plastic over the towns.
“From this Diwali onwards, we will dispose of all the single-use plastics in the town. Simultaneously, we are related with an organization that will gather recyclable plastic waste from the towns for reusing and reuse,” Reddy says.
Plastic is one of the most used items which has strength and durability. However, these two characteristics of plastic also make it one of the most hazardous things for environmental health, as it does not decompose and pollutes the environment for a long while. It is not only humans who are being affected though.
Specialists from Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences University took out 52 kg of non-biodegradable substance from the stomach of a dairy animal after a five-hour-long medical procedure.
We must understand the need to fight the plastic problem by replacing it with a better and eco-friendly solution. Banning and prohibiting the use of single-use plastic, is just one of them.
