The Hindu    20.08.2012

Udupi CMC plans to ban plastic bags in September

Kiran Kumar, president of Udupi City Municipal Council (CMC), said on Friday that the municipality was planning to ban all kinds of plastic bags from September 1. He was speaking at an interaction programme organised by the Udupi Consumer Forum here. To a question by retired manger of Syndicate Bank Ramesh Rao, Mr. Kumar said he hoped that the ban would be implemented completely by September 15.

A ban on plastic carry bags would discourage people from disposing of garbage on road sides and in other public places, he said.

After the municipality banned the use of plastic bags below 40 microns in October 2011, the problem of garbage disposal had come down by nearly 20 per cent. To streamline the existing door-to-door garbage collection system in the city, the municipality was thinking of providing two buckets to each house — one for collecting wet waste and another for dry waste. While the wet waste buckets would be collected daily, the dry waste buckets would be collected once a week. Now, wet and dry garbage was being collected daily by self-help groups (SHGs) for a fee of Rs. 30 per house every month. Once the two-bucket system was enforced, the municipality would not collect any fee from houses, but would collect fees only from commercial buildings.

The municipality was planning two power projects — one was the bio-methanation plant to generate power using wet or green waste, and another plant to generate power using solid waste by pyrolysis method. These two projects would help make Udupi a clean city, Mr. Kumar said.

To a question, Mr. Kumar said that the municipality had faced some problem in supplying drinking water in May this year because the district administration had not allowed mechanised removal of silt from the river following a court order.

A ban on plastic bags would curb garbage disposal on road sides