Pune retailers to reuse garbage for plastic buckets

PUNE: The Pune District Retailers Organisation (PRDO) has taken steps to collect and segregate the daily wet and dry garbage so they can reuse the plastic waste to produce buckets.
This step is being taken following the state government's move to ban plastic carrybags and other plastic items.

Sachin Nivangune of the PRDO said that retailers were considering various options to deal with the daily plastic garbage after the ban. Though there is still ambiguity on the implementation of the ban, the organization has decided to take a step to minimize plastic use and deal with plastic garbage in a better way.

The PRDO recently decided to join hands with the Clean Garbage Management organization which will supply the buckets to retailers in exchange for the plastic garbage. Another organization named Samagra Nadi Pariwar will help PRDO create awareness among retailers about garbage management and its segregation.

According to the PRDO, there are over 35,000 retailers in the city. About 36 branches of retailers are active in the city.

Nivangune said, “We have started the initiative at Sinhagad Road where about 250 retailers are handing over the dry and wet garbage to a garbage tempo. The wet garbage is going to PMC’s waste processing unit while the plastic in the dry garbage is going for processing. Every retailer who gives 10kg of dry waste is given a plastic bucket in exchange. A retailer can give this bucket to customers as a token of appreciation”, Nivangune said.

The PRDO has said that the initiative has already received a good response in the first few days. The initiative will be taken up by every branch in the city in a phased manner after it has been successfully implemented.

Meanwhile, the retailers said the PMC’s existing mechanism of garbage collection is not effective and there is room for improvement. “The garbage collectors are not regular. Also, they do not collect the entire garbage. Now, we have set up our own system which is working in a much more effective manner”, retailers said.