BENGALURU: Around the beginning of October, a new social media trend started making the rounds in the city: People posing with their steel plates, cups, spoons and straws and proudly using the hashtag #BYOCSelfie. The campaign was started by Padma Naveen, Seema Sharma and Rishita Sharma in an effort to reduce the plastic and paper waste generated in Bengaluru. Soon, eco-volunteers across the city started promoting the campaign too.
For the past year, Padma had been trying to get the tea vendor outside her workplace to switch to reusable cups. "If one tea vendor alone uses 800 cups in a day, just imagine how much waste those paper cups must generate across the city. When we tried explaining this to the vendor, he cited logistic concerns. So we thought we'll start from our side," she says. Soon, she posted a picture on social media where she carried her own cup during her tea break. "Rishita then shared the picture on the Whitefield Rising group with the hashtag #BYOC, and the campaign just took off from there," she adds.
In two to three days, about 50-60 posts were uploaded with that same hashtag. The idea was to help people who were hesitant to try something like this be more comfortable with the idea. “There are people who have been doing this before the campaign. But thanks to social media, people have become more aware. We’ve had people tell us they were hesitant to try something like this, but feel inspired after seeing such posts,” says Rishita.
Refuse to reduce
Vani Murthy, a member of Solid Waste Management Round Table, has been carrying her own cutlery for many years now, and says the only way to reduce waste is to refuse single-use disposables.
And this thought seems to be catching on quickly in the city with people refusing more than just cups. For example, Vani also carries small cloth napkins (made from old curtains) instead of using tissue paper, anchor and radio and TV journalist Vasanthi Hariprakash tries to carry her own steel water bottle, and her own container to restaurants if she’s getting food packed, and Rishita carries her own plate to restaurants to avoid single-use disposables. People’s reactions on seeing them carry their own cutlery is also varied. “Some ignore us. Some get curious, ask us questions and promise to do the same,” says Rishita. She recalls an instance when she carried plates for her colleagues and herself to a Taco Bell outlet and how they were accommodating of her request. This, however, can be a challenge sometimes. “Once, an outlet refused to serve me a drink in my own cup since their branding would get affected. After a lot of convincing, they finally agreed,” she says.
Water down the drain
Often, people bring up the amount of water needed in washing vessels as a counter-argument to carrying their own vessels. Padma’s answer to that has always been that the amount of water that goes into making a paper cup and the carbon footprint involved in transportation is far greater than the water used to wash your vessels at home. As for cleanliness, Vani says she wipes her vessels clean before she puts away the dishes in a cloth bag and adds it to her regular vessel load at home. “I’d much rather carry this burden than burden our planet,” says Vani.
chai on discount for byoc
Influenced by the campaign, Chai Point outlets in the country have started urging consumers to carry their own cups, and even offer a discount of `5 if users do so. Amuleek Singh Bijral, CEO and co-founder of the chain, says, "We use about four lakh cups across stores and dispensaries. While we know this switch can't happen overnight, we're hoping to see at least a five per cent drop in the paper cup waste generated by us."