BENGALURU: “The efforts taken to curb plastic in the city by using it for road construction is just not enough to curb the plastic menace,” said K Ahmed Khan, MD of KK Plastic Waste Management Limited. The company is in-charge of processing the plastic waste which was given by Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) to the Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL).
On Sunday, BIAL formally received five tonnes of plastic from the civic body and requested for 50 tonnes for a 50-km stretch road till Terminal 2 which had been agreed. The plastic was handed over to a team from BIAL by BBMP Mayor Gangambike Mallikarjun. “This is a small project and 50 tonnes is nowhere. We had a pact with the BBMP from 2004 to 2014 until BBMP decided not to implement the project anymore,” Khan said.
"The company is said to be the only supplier of plastic mix for asphalting roads. With 8,000 kilometres of roads covered using plastic, 15,000 tonnes would get used and the process can later be extended outside the city as well," Khan added.
In addition to this, the firm also pays Rs 8 per kg to ragpickers, which Ahmed says is an added bonus to the workers and helps keep the city clean. However, recently, with the lack of support from the state government and the BBMP, the company was forced to shift their factory to Gurugram.