NEW DELHI: The Delhi government’s pledge to ban single-use plastic has become more pronounced with the Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal pitching for ‘no plastic cutlery’ message for the people of the national capital.
The Delhi Secretariat has also become more specific with its previous circular against single-use plastic in its departments.
“We had earlier issued a circular to curtail the usage of single-use plastic and this week we have begun recreating it more categorically and in an exhaustive manner. We are guiding all the departments about what products have to be given up,” a senior government official told this newspaper.
On Wednesday, a full-page advertisement was put up in several newspapers with Kejriwal’s message ‘Plastic is pollution’.
In the premises of the state government offices, the usage of plastic bottles, cups and plates has already been stopped.
“We have banned all these items used earlier in our meetings.
Now, we have replaced the water bottles with thermas flasks filled with water and asked the same to other departments to follow,” the official said, adding that the AAP government was also planning to process a detailed advisory on this issue by Thursday.
“We want the kitchen and cafeteria of the secretariat to replace and look for an alternative as well,” he said.
Not just the government, the municipal corporations across the city have also organised awareness drives to stop single-use plastic.
“We have organised several rallies and have been following the central government’s plan of creating awareness against the use of plastic for the past 20 days. We also had rallies from Zafar Mahal to Qutub Complex, Malviya Nagar, RK Puram, GK and Chhatarpur,” said the deputy commissioner (South Zone) SDMC, Vishwendra Singh.
The East MCD in association with the Indian Pollution Control Association (IPCA) and Dabur India also organised plogging (picking up litter while jogging) on the occasion, they said.
As many as 32,000 students of NDMC schools, took the plastic-free India pledge and vowed not to use single-use plastics in a mega event.
Plastic Raavana effigy goof-up
The Noida authority was caught it a tight situation after it declared to burn a Raavana effigy made of plastic waste on Dushera.
When pointed about the plastic pollution, the Authority issued a clarification on realising the goof-up. Noida Authority CEO, Ritu Maheshwari claimed that the initial tweet was an error by her media team which was later rectified by her ‘personally’, when she saw the tweet.