Pashan-Baner residents to avoid plastic bags

With a view to reduce the usage of plastic waste, residents of Baner Pashan Link Road will start a project to avoid using plastic bags. Area’s Vikas Samiti’s executive committee is ensuring that the residents use cloth bags made of old saris for local shopping. The committee members are working to convince the shopkeepers in the area to sell cloth bags at minimum profit rate and avoid using plastic bags. The group also plans to put up banners and posters all over the area to convince the residents to adopt this environmentally sustainable model.  As per a report published in the Times of India, Seema Agrawal, vice-president of the committee, said, "The biggest component of dry garbage seen around our area is plastic. Once mixed with other garbage, recycling it becomes difficult. Ideally we should segregate plastic and give to waste pickers. Even the non-woven bags we see in many shops that look like cloth are fake. In fact, they are more damaging as they cannot be recycled." After a social responsibility was undertaken by Madhavi Sardeshpande, a National Laboratory Scientist who collected old saris as donations and employed underprivileged women of Pashan and Sutarwadi to make bags.