There are many people who travel in trains in India. From drinking tea to having a crunch on the meal, every passenger uses plastic. It is so obvious that with increased passengers, there is also an excessive use of plastics as well. Not many people would throw the wastes into the dustbins provided in trains, instead they find an easier way of throwing the scrap outside the window.
This infamous trend has been continuing for more than 2 or 3 decades and it’s disheartening to see the place get affected. In an attempt to cut down on the use of plastic, Indian Railways have come up with a brilliant environment-friendly initiative of beating plastic pollution that has been there for so many years.
Indian Railways have installed bottle crushers at the Vadodara Railway Station so that plastic waste can be effectively minimised. Interestingly, Indian Railways has announced that the passengers will get paid for disposing off the water bottles.
Passengers will have to develop the habit of dropping the bottle into the Bottle crusher machine and then they have to enter their mobile number. Those who follow the instructions accordingly will get a cashback of Rs. 5 on their Paytm wallet. Good initiative isn’t it? Yes, it is.
On World Environment Day, Indian Railways took this step as a part of ‘Go Green initiative’ to replace Polymer Plates with Eco-Friendly Ones on Premium Trains. The travellers on some premium trains will be served meals on eco-friendly, disposable plates that are made of bagasse, instead of polymer.
Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) on June 5 launched its preliminary test of eco-friendly, bagasse-based food packaging on premium trains such as Shatabdi and Rajdhani trains starting from New Delhi. In the upcoming months, Indian Railways has planned to introduce the bagasse-based packaging on all the Rajdhani, Shatabdi and Duranto trains.
A Small Step to Beat Plastic Pollution: On #WorldEnvironmentDay, Indian Railways has started using fully biodegradable packages in 4 Shatabadi and 4 Rajadhani trains from Delhi, contributing towards a greener planet. pic.twitter.com/ILcwHN1wgK
— Piyush Goyal (@PiyushGoyal) June 5, 2018
“A Small Step to Beat Plastic Pollution: On #WorldEnvironmentDay, Indian Railways has started using fully biodegradable packages in 4 Shatabdi and 4 Rajdhani trains from Delhi, contributing towards a greener planet (sic),” Railway Minister Piyush Goyal had tweeted.
“Provision will be made to collect the used packaging, which will then be processed for disposal through composting to ensure environmental sustainability,” IRCTC said in a statement.
