Naveen urges people to reduce plastic pollution

Bhubaneswar: A series of events were held to create awareness among people on plastic pollution and protecting the environment on World Environment Day on Monday.
Chief minister Naveen Patnaik urged everyone to pledge to check plastic pollution. The CM asked all district collectors to ensure enforcement of ban on single-use plastic and segregation of plastic waste. “The state government has framed several policies to reduce plastic pollution and banned single-use plastic since 2019 in the state. The state has also framed an EV policy with a target to have 20% electric vehicles on road by 2025.”
He presented the Prakruti Mitra award to 173 people and Prakruti Bandhu award to 187 on the occasion.
“Abandoning the ultra-modern, unsustainable lifestyle that is at the root cause of all environmental challenges and work for protecting the quality of our environment. If we won’t wake up to the call now then we may leave behind a poisonous earth for our future generations,” said S N Patro, president of Odisha Environment Society (OES), in another event.
ICMR-RMRC director Sanghamitra Pati explained how plastics in general, more significantly microplastics and nano-plastics are causing various health hazards like cancer, reducing immunity power, hormonal imbalance, birth defects and genetic mutations.