‘Swachh Hind Fauj’ to make city plastic free

Nagpur: A group of women and youngsters are forging an association to rid Nagpur first and Jalgaon next of plastics. In a unique initiative, NGO We Dare Global Association has launched a 'Swachh Hind Fauj' in the city.

The movement, which has 1,647 registered 'commandos', had a soft launch last week. The members targeted to convert West high court road into a plastic free zone. "Around 150 students gathered and approached the shop owners to convince them to get rid of polythene bags in return of cotton bags. Some 70% of the owners agreed to this," said Madhubala Saboo, one of the directors of the NGO.

To orient citizens on the hazards of using plastic, the organization has planned a massive launch on October 2 in which 100 booths will be set-up across the city, particularly in market areas. "Every booth will have 2,000 cloth bags and 12-15 volunteers who will urge the public to exchange their plastic bags with cloth ones. Also, each booth will target convincing 20 shop owners, which means we will try to rope in 2,000 owners in our campaign on a single day," Saboo added. The booths will be inaugurated by sanitary workers of the civic body.

Over 2 lakh cloth bags that will be distributed by the volunteers have been sewn by a group of women. "This way, we are also trying to provide employment. More than 300 women are working with us for making bags," she said.

The organization, which has chosen Nagpur for the pilot project, has been working since about last three months to gather young volunteers through an online campaign. Plastic, being an "alarming threat" to the environment, will be a key focus of the campaign along with other issues like spitting at public places, open defecation and disposal of garbage.

"Despite environmental norms, plastic continues to be widely used in our day to day life. Millions of plastic bags are given out to consumers by supermarkets and stores to carry their goods in. Although they appear to be fragile and light, they cause big pollution — right from extraction of raw materials, production, transportation, recycling to disposal," Saboo said.