Friday, February 12, 2010

A beginning made in the right direction !

A beginning made in the right direction

Posted by: "thiagarajan.arunachalam@gmail.com" thiagarajan.arunachalam@gmail.com

Wed Feb 10, 2010 3:39 am (PST)

Source: The Hindu (http://www.hinduonnet.com/2010/02/09/stories/2010020959100400.htm)
Andhra Pradesh

A beginning made in the right direction

Staff Reporter

Efforts to shun plastic at the NGO, individual level are commendable

HYDERABAD: They are islands of action in ocean of apathy. Some take inspiration from them, while some others find them snobbish and self-righteous. Whatever they are, they should be commended for the steadfast determination with which they hate plastic and campaign against it. Deserving first mention is Viajayaram, the famed ‘mithaiwallah’ of Emerald Sweets near Indira Park. Setting himself as example, he shunned plastic from his life and business. At his shop, customers get sweets with no colours or toxic content, and carry them home in a paper bag or a cloth one.
Mr. Vijayaram engaged ten of his workers to make bags out of newspapers and cardboard. However, the endeavour has proved to be not only expensive, but also cumbersome.
"To address this problem, I have introduced a scheme, whereby customers carrying their own bags will get a 4 per cent discount on total purchase",says Mr. Vijayaram. Also an artist, he uses the weekend drawing classes to spread awareness among children.
B. Ramakrishna Reddy, working as Auditor in State Bank of Hyderabad, is another enviro-savvy plastic-hater. Taking time from his schedule, he goes on door-to-door campaign about the harmful effects of plastic.
"I began this endeavour after reading a news item about a cow’s stomach yielding 40 kilograms of plastic", says Mr.Reddy.

Cold response

Very few people are unaware of the effort by the Exnora groups in various localities of the city. Striving towards zero waste management in the city are NGOs such as Sukuki Exnora and Jubilee Hills Civic Exnora (JHCE). Indira Lingam, the President of JHCE sounds pessimistic about people’s response in shunning plastics. Their project in Jubilee Hills of introducing paper bags, and two-bin mode of garbage disposal received a cold response, she says. On the contrary, Major Shivkiran from Sukuki Exnora that covers areas around Begumpet, sounds hopeful. He has been successful in implementing the two-bin system in about 20,000 households. Also, about 3,000 quarters in Ordnance Factory are going to adopt the zero waste management model proposed by them. Pragathi Nagar, the ISO-certified Panchayat that has done away with plastic covers is another isolated example of success.

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