BENGALURU: In a bid to curb the use of plastic in the city, residents of Panathur have come up with an initiative to provide steel cutlery to people for use during birthday parties and other events. The cutlery is provided free of cost.
About 30 families from Vaswani Reserve in Panathur have got together to bring the change and promote the use of steel utensils in the city. “We all know that plastic is bad for environment and we must encourage everyone to use steel utensils. They can be reused, and cause no harm to life,” said Vimi Jain, who launched the initiative.
After Jain decided to float the project, she talked to different families in the apartment about this idea, and they were too happy to join her in the effort. They pooled Rs 26,000 and bought 100 sets of steel utensils, consisting of partitioned plates, spoons, forks, dessert bowls, small glasses for juices, water glasses and snack plates.
The utensil bank was set up in Panathur, where Jain organises various activities for children. “Earlier we wanted to keep the utensil bank in the apartment only, but then we realised that outsiders who are interested in taking them will not be allowed. So we have kept it at my activity room, which is close to the apartment,” she said.
So far they have given out the utensil sets for five parties, saving use of 4.5kg plastic. “Word about the utensil bank is spreading fast through friends, and a lot of people have started to ask for it. We ask them for information such as their name, address, contact number, the utensils needed, and a scanned copy of their Aadhaar card for security reasons. They have to deposit a sum of Rs 1,000 for taking the utensils. They get the amount back on returning all the items,” Jain said.
Before starting the initiative, she contacted many such utensil banks across the country, and got inputs from them on how to start it. For instance, a Gurgaon-based utensil bank told her about the minimum number of utensils required to start with, which could be expanded further. Jain said this is just the start, and they will get more steel cutlery to provide to people soon.
“It’s good to see people come up to take the steel utensils. We are happy that the initiative is working out. We want to see people adopt using steel cutlery for every event and say no to use of plastic,” she said.