Baripada: Even as the government has announced its efforts to make the state free of plastic by October 2 with several awareness programmes being taken up, many NGOS have come out to spread the message of sanitation and clean environment.
The Baripada municipality, the oldest civic body in the state, has not lagged behind in discouraging use of plastic items and material. Its efforts have been successful, though not fully. Given the data, the use of plastic by residents has drastically fallen in the last four years in the civic body areas.
About 8 tonne of plastic waste was being collected during the cleaning of garbage in the civic body areas on a daily basis. But now, nearly five tonne of plastic waste is coming out.
“There are 28 wards in the municipality. The civic body removes about 50 tonne of garbage daily. Of it, 5 tonne is plastic. Maximum plastic material are found in the garbage dumps in three wards (4; 5 and 6),” Santosh Mohanty, sanitary inspector of the civic body, said.
The garbage collected from various locations is buried in the dumping yard at Raghunathpur. Plastic material is buried in big pits, he said.
Mohanty said he has been advising people not to use plastic during the daily supervision of the wards.
Besides, 250 workers engaged in street sweeping and garbage collection tell people not to use plastic items.
Over the years, use of plastic has come down, he added.
During the Rath Yatra, residents were urged and sensitised against use of plastic material and polythene.
