More from the Press

Times of India

NMC seizes 15 kg plastic bags

29 October 2009
NAGPUR: Despite a ban on ultra thin plastic bags, the festival season saw their return with a vengeance. Since the plastic bags are cheap, shopkeepers are blatantly flouting and offering them to customers to carry the wares. Nagpur Municipal Corporation's health department, resuming its drive against use of plastic bag, conducted raids at various city shops, vendors and seized almost 15 kg of banned plastic bags on Tuesday. The health department raided Akshay Traders, Ashok Restaurant, Vrindavan Prasad, Nikhare Steel Gift Centre, Paunikar General Stores, Disha Saree Centre, A Kumar Tea Company, Nikhil Readymade Centre, Sheetal General Stores, F1 Restaurant and Dosar Restaurant and seized almost 15 kg banned plastic bags. A fine of Rs 5,000 was recovered from each shop owner. A senior health department official told TOI that even after the state had banned manufacture and use of plastic bags below 50 micron thickness under the Maharashtra Non-Biodegradable Garbage Control Act, 2006, manufacturers and vendors were still supplying these bags.


Indian Army cleans 14-km stretch to Amarnath cave
20 October 2009

JAMMU: The Indian Army, in a major environmental drive, cleaned four tonnes of non-biodegradable waste on the 14 km stretch from Baltal to Amarnath cave shrine in Jammu and Kashmir, a senior official said Tuesday. The track, located at the height of 12,000 feet above sea level at Baltal to the cave shrine, was littered with plastic bags, empty mineral water bottles and other non-biodegradable material. This exercise was undertaken by the High Altitude Warfare School (HAWS), Sonamarg, 100 km north of Srinagar, under the plan laid out by its Commandant Brigadier Jagmohan Varma, said Colonel D.K. Kachari, PRO of the Northern Command. A team of 247 Army personnel undertook the drive to collect non-biodegradable waste lying in the area with each individual collecting 20 kg approximately. A total of four tonnes of non-biodegradable waste was collected and disposed off, cleaning up the environment under the banner "Save Green Himalayas", Kachari said.