TIRUCHY: As plastic bags continue to creep into shops and city stalls despite the many measures in place, the city corporation in a novel attempt would give out cloth bags free of cost to city merchants and vendors. Senior officials said the bags would be made with clothes collected through the 'Refuse, Recycle, Reuse' (RRR) initiative.
The initiative is to kickstart this year itself. A senior official said, "Residents are currently disposing of old clothes at the various micro-compost centres. We have selected an NGO to manufacture and distribute cloth bags from these discarded clothes. In this way, we would ensure not only the recycling of clothes but also alternatives to plastic bags.
At present, we are planning to give the bags for free through support from sponsors." Many officials opined clothing bags as more economically feasible than the setting up of cloth vending machines in the city. "It is not economically feasible for us to place cloth vending machines at multiple places in the city. Therefore, we have come up with this alternative through which discarded clothes would be made us of to get rid of plastic bags.
The distribution, however, depends solely on the quantity of clothes we are able to collect through the RRR centres," another officer said. Meanwhile, residents suggested the corporation to consider making use of clothes donated at the Wall of Happiness (a cloth shelf kept for the poor). "A lot of clothes are collected through the Wall of Happiness centres. It is kept in bundles. It is an open secret that some ragpickers collect clothes from this facility.
Therefore, the corporation can consider using clothes from this facility to manufacture cloth bags. Similarly, many pilgrims discard clothes at Amma mandapam after taking a dip in the Cauvery during Amavasya and other auspicious days. The corporation can also consider using such clothes for making bags," said MS Ramamurthy, a senior citizen and resident of Srirangam.