Corp motivate people for ban on plastic
A plastic carry bag containing garbage that was dumped in the city.Street-corner meetings across the city and vehicles with banners carrying anti-plastics slogans are among the proposals being examined by the Coimbatore Corporation to motivate people to make the ban on plastic items below 20 microns successful.With just one-and-half-months to go for the ban on plastic bags, cups and other materials to take effect (on April 1), the Corporation is planning to conduct a number of programmes to sensitise people to the environmental hazards of using these items.Street corner meetings across the city figure in the list of proposals.The civic body recently held a meeting with traders to tell them why the ban was vital to save the city from the menace of the non-biodegradable and non-recyclable plastics.Voluntary bodies involved in environment protection were also asked to explain the hazards.Mayor R. Venkatachalam admits that a couple of meetings alone will not be enough to make the ban successful.Traders who pack items in disposable carry bags and the public will have to be told constantly that the damage to the environment, especially ground water table, may become irreversible if the ban is not effective.
The Corporation is also aware that its Rs.96-crore solid waste management project will not be successful without a special effort to eliminate disposable plastics.If there is no ban on the manufacture, storing and sale of these items, its use cannot be stopped.Then, isolating these items from garbage will prove an arduous task for the civic body.Plastics will prove to be a damper to the Corporation effort to convert biodegradable waste into manure.Plastics mixing with waste disposed through landfill will prove a threat to the groundwater table, as it will severely restrict percolation of water.
“We have to meet the traders at least for another two to three times. We need to tell them why we this ban is very important for the future of the city,” says Mr. Venkatachalam.The Mayor has submitted a proposal to Corporation Commissioner P. Muthuveeran for a continuous awareness campaign from now till the ban takes effect.This suggestion comes even as the Corporation has already announced a fortnight-long campaign ahead of April 1.“Street corner meetings to explain the reasons for the ban can be held in all the 72 wards of the city. The Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Chairman and members of the Corporation Council’s Standing Committee on Health and the ward councillors can take part in these,” the Mayor suggests.
Another form of sensitisation proposed is banners containing anti-plastics message mounted on vehicles.These can go around the city, with ban-related instructions to the public being issued through a public address system.The extent of abuse of the city’s infrastructure and environs through reckless use of plastics has been such that the city now requires an intensive campaign to involve people in enforcing the ban, says the Mayor.The Corporation says it will constitute an implementation committee comprising various stakeholders’ groups such as traders and voluntary organisations.
The latter include environmental groups. Another group, comprising Corporation officials, will enforce the ban. Corporation sources say that the civic body has begun the groundwork.It does not have a micron meter to measure whether the items seized are below 20 microns. But, purchasing it will be among the efforts being made now to make the ban effective, they say.
