The first Indian village which offers sugar in exchange for plastic waste

Moga: With an aim to eradicate the plastic waste from the village, a panchayat of Ransih Kalan has been offering free sugar to the villagers in exchange of the household plastic waste in the state.

Former Sarpanch Preet Inder Singh whose mother is present Sarpanch of Ransih Kalan village said today that he wanted to make his village plastic-free due to which he has introduced this plan with the expectation that villagers will start storing the plastic waste in their houses instead of throwing it in the village drains or streets. 

He said that plastic is not only harmful to the environment but also deadly for the stray animals roaming in the villages.

Mr Singh said that the village panchayat with the help of four philanthropists including Rupinderdeep Singh, Jathedar Harnek Singh, Jagseer Singh and Manjinder Singh had organised first such camp to give the equal quantity of free sugar in exchange of plastic waste on October 21 and had got a good response. 

He said that they had distributed five quintals of sugar after collecting an equal quantity of plastic waste from the villagers. He said that the funds for the sugar are being donated by the four philanthropists.

He said that they will hold such camps after every two months that the villagers could store enough amount of plastic waste at their houses. He said that from next time apart from sugar they will offer jaggery, rice and wheat to the villagers. He said that they have also planned to extend these benefits to the children by encouraging them to collect the packets of chips, foods and drinks, and exchange them with the books later.

On asking about what they will do with the plastic waste, Mr Singh said that they have tied up with a Ludhiana based firm Parivartan, which will purchase plastic waste from them at Rs 10 per kilogram for recycling it.

He said that they will continue holding such camps until villagers won't acquire a habit to use jute bags. He said that they have also got printed jute bags carrying slogans like "Jal Hai To Kal Hai, Aao Kadam Nai Kadam Milao, Plastic Mukt Pind Banao and Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao" and distributed one jute bag in each household of total 500 houses in the village. One Jute bag cost them Rs 23 including printing cost to them, he said.

Meanwhile, to save water the village panchayat has also distributed three buckets in each household to bring wastewater in usage like one bucket for storing water being wasted from Reverse Osmosis (RO) system, one to store Air Conditioner Water and another bucket to store left-over water in glasses. ''We can save gallons of water by doing this practice as the wastewater drained from AC and RO can be used for irrigation purposes,'' he said.(UNI)