BATHINDA: Inspired by the success story of Ransih Kalan in Moga district, Ballo village in Bathinda and Bhaini Mehraj in Barnala have started giving away rations for plastic waste to encourage recycling.
They have asked their residents to exchange their plastic waste for general provisions such as sugar and jaggery. This offer will be activated at Ballo and Bhaini Mehraj from July 1. The villages will get the block-level plastic waste management units (PWMU) — a material recovery facility under the Swachh Bharat Mission (Grameen) — for the recycling operation.
The water supply and sanitation department will install these units in all the blocks of Punjab to reprocess plastic granules into raw material for several manufactured items. The campaign started in October 2019 from Ransih Kalan, when its panchayat started taking the trash of used bottles, shampoo pouches, sachets, brushes, medicines, chappals, and bags from the villagers and giving them sugar and jaggery worth its weight.
Village development organiser (VDO) Paramjit Bhullar said that: “The villagers stopped discarding their plastic and started bringing it to the weekly exchange camp. First Ballo picked it up from Ransih and now the change has come to Bhaini Mehraj.”
Sukhwinder Kaur of Bhaini Mehraj, who chaired a general council meeting at the village on Monday, said: “Plastic waste doesn’t decompose for centuries and causes climate change. The enormity of this problem prompted us to come up with the idea of reducing it.”
The sarpanches of Ransih and Ballo have similar sentiments.
At some places, the collection and exchange will be done every three months. The scheme’s promoters used the public-address system to tell the villagers that the plastic waste management units will come and collect the plastic waste of every house in the cluster and reprocess it for cement production and road carpeting.
Stay updated with the latest news on Times of India. Don't miss daily games like Crossword, Sudoku, and Mini Crossword.Neel Kamal writes about sustainable agriculture, environment, cli...
Read MoreNeel Kamal writes about sustainable agriculture, environment, climate change for The Times of India. His incisive and comprehensive reporting about over a year-long farmers' struggle against farm laws at the borders of the national capital won laurels. He is an alumunus of Chandigarh College of Engineering and Technology.
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