Gurgaon: The Municipal Corporation of Gurgaon (MCG) will place an installation of the earth wrapped in plastic at a prominent junction of the city to urge residents to shun the polluting material. Officials said they had shortlisted Sadar Bazar and Huda City Centre metro station to place the installation, which would be 12ft in diameter.
This apart, the civic body will also ask RWAs and other residents’ bodies to install similar models in townships and condominiums to raise awareness about the harmful effects of single-use plastic. The installation will be unwrapped at any society that manages to go plastic-free.
“We thought of this idea to make people understand what harm plastic is doing to our planet. We are planning to make an earth installation and have shortlisted Huda City Centre metro station and Sadar Bazar so far. We are going to make the installation in two weeks. We will also involve RWAs and ask them to install such models in their societies. Only when all the societies and townships declare themselves plastic-free, the main installation will be unwrapped,” said Dheeraj Kumar, joint commissioner for the Swachh Bharat Mission at MCG.
Residents, too, said they would help the corporation in the drive. “We will participate in the campaign. We have already taken a big ball and will transform it into an earth installation and place it over an oak tree on the society premises. This will help us raise awareness about making our society free of plastic. We are also in talks with a Pune-based company that can convert plastic bags, wrappers of food items like breads, milk etc. into threads and make accessories out of it,” said Bhawana Chauhan, vice-president of Pioneer Park RWA in Sector 61.
MCG has been campaigning across marketplaces to stop the use of plastic bags. The civic body has started awareness drives in the markets of sectors 23, 46 and 4. Under these campaigns, launched under Swachh Survekshan, 2021, officials have been apprising shopkeepers and residents about the disadvantages of using polythene bags. Moreover, residents are also being encouraged to switch to cloth and jute bags.
“We generate around 100 tonnes of plastic waste every day. It includes every type of plastic, but our emphasis is on abolishing the use of plastic bags and single-use plastic, which is 40% of the total waste generated in the city every day,” said Kumar.
Moreover, MCG has recently issued a notice on plastic waste management in the city. Fines in the slab of Rs 500-25,000 will be imposed from February 27 on anybody found using plastic in certain quantities.