War on plastics: Disposed covers sent back to factory

Commissioner and Special Officer, Alby John Varghese, told DT Next on Thursday that six boxes containing 20,000 plastic wrappers were handed over by the students to the Corporation office. The wrappers, which were of five MNC brand products used by them, have been dispatched to concerned companies by post for recycling.

The school students had forwarded a letter to the manager of a company in Gurgaon stressing on either the need for introducing eco-friendly packaging or safe disposal of used plastic wrappers. The students had spent three weeks in the collection of such wrappers.

The objective of this initiative is to explore principles of extended producer responsibility, which could be an efficient resource management tool aimed at helping producers under the urban local body minimise environmental impacts by collecting, sorting and treating plastic wastes to recycle it.

The Corporation wants to scale up this activity with the involvement of students from all schools, colleges, residential welfare associations and others organisations.

In line with government’s order on banning harmful plastics, which would be in effect from January 1, 2019, the Thoothukudi Corporation has embarked on a mission to phase out the use of such plastic products.

About 70 to 80 tonnes of plastic wastes generated under the Corporation limits were collected every week and recyclable plastics were being sold to the needy. The sanitary workers were benefitted with the proceeds of the sale. Last year, the revenue generated from the sale of such plastic was Rs 55 lakh, Dr Varghese said.