Chief Secretary asks departments to come up calendar for recycling of single use plastic products and their disposal

Ranchi: Chief Secretary DK Tiwari has directed all the departments to come up with their calendars to discourage the use of single-use plastic and encourage the traditional means so that use of single-use plastic can be lessened in the state.

He said that in the calendar it should be clearly spelt out as to how the use of plastic would be reduced and should also contain the details related to recycling and disposal fine collection etc.

The instruction in this regard from the chief secretary followed during a meeting with the heads of the various departments over the issue of discouraging the use of single-use plastic and effective disposal of plastic waste and their recycling in the state. He directed the officials to discourage the use of single-use plastic across the state with special focus on the capital city of Ranchi and suggested that school colleges should be made plastic-free areas.

He said that in order to realise the goal of Swachata hi Seva campaign for creating awareness among the people help of housing societies ward councillors and shop keepers association should also be taken.

In the meeting the officials of the forest department said that in wildlife areas and Diversity park use of plastic has been already prohibited and the department has laid stress to set up a recycling unit in Ranchi on the other hand the rural development department informed that a total of 100 villages including all the Adarsh Gram villages a pit will be dug up to dispose the single-use plastic.

The road construction department said that it will use plastic waste to build roads which will reduce the cost of construction.

The Panchayati Raj department said that it would Run awareness campaign in every panchayat and also take the help of Sakhi Mandal in this initiative while the Urban Development Department said that it would put up bottle crushing machines in the municipal area and pointed that so far in the drive against single-use plastic a fine of Rs 40.12 lakh has been collected and large quantity of plastic carry bags have been seized.