Plastic is not a kuppai matter anymore

So, India’s host to this year’s World Environment Day, with the theme focusing on ‘Beat Plastic Pollution’. But while all this is good global publicity, thanks to Modi’s PR skills, are we doing any thing at the ground level to control this alarming situation? Yes, though not much, say environment organisations in Chennai, who are going all out with their audits to reduce plastic usage by all means. The city hotels and food joints also pitch in, they say. And ensuring all this plastic talk gets the limelight is the Board of Cricket Control of India, that has gone ahead and signed an MOU with the UNEP to promote green practices in the stadiums during cricket matches held in India.CITY PLASTIC AUDIT SAYS...As a part of the run-up to the World Environment Day, an initiative called Kuppai Matters, coordinated by Citizen Consumer and Civic Action Group (CAG — an NGO) did an audit on plastic trash in four different areas within Chennai. “In Chennai, we did the audit at Srinivasapuram side of the Adyar river, Adyar Estuary, Chitlapakkam and Pallavaram. It was a two-step process. The first step was waste audit, where we collected waste in six different categories — unbranded-, branded-plastics, polystyrene, textile, glass metal and rubber. Then, we did an audit of branded plastic waste. The idea is to find those brands/manufacturers that are responsible for unsustainable business practices,” explains Kripa Ramachandran, a researcher with CAG.According to the audit, the amount of plastic trash was higher than other waste, and Kripa says, “Naturally, the amount of plastic waste was much higher because we were focusing on plastic trash, keeping in line with the theme ‘Beat Plastic Pollution’. But it so happened that whatever we collected from these places, every third piece, turned out to be plastic.” In this situation, Kripa says, talking to the consumer or trying to change their behaviour is the farthest end-of-the-pipeline solution. “As a consumer, many of us have only very little control over how a certain thing can be packaged. Certain materials are thrust upon the consumers. For instance, these soft-drink brands earlier had a collection system, where they served in glass bottles. Now, the drink comes in plastic bottles and is promoted like that in the name of convenience. But who’s paying the price for this? Now, we’re going to push the data collected back to the corporates. And in the process, also get the government to make a robust extended-producers responsibility clause,” she elaborates.SAYING NO TO PLASTIC IN CRICKET STADIUMSLast Sunday, something as momentous as Chennai’s win in the final of IPL happened — but just before the final match, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and UN Environment signed an agreement to promote ‘green’ cricket in India. This is a major step, said Amitabh Choudhary, acting hon. secretary of the BCCI, in a statement, “in spreading the message of environmental conservation. We will help make cricket green and sensitise spectators towards minimising waste generation during matches.” Post signing the agreement, Erik Solheim, executive director of UN Environment, said, “We are partnering with the BCCI to use the power of cricket to inspire action for a cleaner environment. The environment and sports are more closely connected than people think. If we don’t have a healthy environment, then sports will not thrive.”CITY HOTELS INITIATE PROGRAMMES TO REDUCE PLASTIC USEThanks to the efforts of environmentalists in creating awareness, some are actually doing their bit to beat the plastic pollution. NR Mahendran, director, Haven Sampoorna (Velachery), says, “We are trying to totally stop using plastic, be it for packing food, or for internal use. To begin with, we have done away with packing takeaways in plastics — we use coir bags now. Also, wherever we can use paper containers, we do that. The few plastic bags or packing material we still use are all recyclable plastics, and we haven’t minded the higher cost this entailed. Why I say this is because we already have some ongoing contracts with MNCs around here, where we deliver packed food every day. When I suggested that we go plasticfree, most of them thought I was on a cost-cutting mode. Now, since I have already bought the material, I am going ahead with the contract. However, I am in talks with their HR departments to convince them that this move will help the environment.”Looks like there are several of them in the F&B industry, who’re quite conscious about environment-friendly practices. Grand by GRT Hotels is one among them. Its Sr GM, Shabin Sarvotham, says, “We are among the first few to have become part of ‘say no to plastics’ initiative in Chennai. We’ve totally come out of using plastic bags for packed orders. Also, we’ve converted all LED lights to halogen ones in the hotel. We also have a compost machine for waste recycling in the hotel, and also a water recycling plant. The recycled water is bottled in glass containers and used in the hotel; we don’t use plastic even for that. For disposable cups, etc, like the ones used for serving chaat, for instance, we now use pakku mattai (cups made of betelnut leaves). We’ve also introduced a No-Bin Day in the hotel — no dustbins are kept anywhere in the hotel, so there is absolutely no garbage, plastic or otherwise, generated. For food garnishes, etc, which are often left behind on the plates, we use pulverised food material, so there’s no waste.”Anil Chadha, VP South - ITC Hotels & GM ITC Grand Chola, says, “We are currently in the first phase of eliminating plastic water bottles. In our premium category of rooms and in restaurants, we give a choice of SunyaAqua, glass water bottles, which is purified water produced within the premises of our hotel. This venture not only reduces plastic bottle use, but also proportionately reduces the carbon emissions caused by the transportation. We hope to scale this up to the whole hotel in few months’ time. We also have a concept of ‘Green Banqueting’, where the guest is given a choice of using SunyaAqua instead of plastic water bottles. Besides bringing down procurement of plastics, we also focus on re-using and recycling the plastics we are currently using. Our waste segregation scheme ensures that plastics are segregated at source (like guestrooms, banquets etc), collected and sent to authorised recyclers. Finding biodegradable alternatives has been part of our objectives for many years. The efforts to find suitable alternates to plastic articles started few years ago. In the initial phase, carry bags, laundry bags, newspaper bags, etc, were made out of paper instead of plastic. We also started with room amenities like bathroom kits, shoe bags, slipper bags etc to be made of bio-degradable material, giving a miss to plastics.”