Gujarat: Bring plastic waste and get free food and snacks at this cafe

A new café has become the talk of the town in Gujarat’s Dahod district. Reason―it provides free snacks and tea to customers in exchange for plastic waste.

This novel initiative of setting up a ‘plastic café’ in front of Dahod tehsil panchayat comes in the wake of centre’s Shwachh Bharat Abhiyan, and will likely be the first in the state. Referring to this, Deputy District Development Officer NP Patanwadiya told the media persons that the café was set up two days ago with the sole aim to make the tribal-dominated Dahod plastic-free.
The café works on the model of a scheme which states that those, who bring one kilogram of plastic waste with them, will get snacks; similarly, those getting half-a-kilogram of waste will get tea for free. An official in the know-how stated that the snacks offered in the café will be prepared by women under the Gujarat Government’s Sakhi Mandal scheme. The official also mentioned that the café has successfully collected a sizeable amount of plastic waste so far, and the collected plastic will now be sent for recycling. It is expected that if the concept turns out to be successful, it will be expanded to other tehsils in the district.
Records state that most Indian cities are struggling with vast amounts of unsegregated waste. While few waste-management schemes are in place, more measures need to be taken. As per the country’s Environment Ministry, the country generates approximately 25000 tonnes of plastic waste every day. However, the matter of concern is that only around 14000 tonnes of waste is collected. Therefore, the concept of cafes bartering food for plastic waste is the need of the hour to spread awareness among people.