340 kg banned plastic seized, vendors booked

Pune: In a special drive against use of plastic bags, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) seized 340 kilogram bags from vendors. The civic body has also started filing cases against 30 vendors for using the banned bags. PMC recently had decided to increase the price of plastic bags to Rs 15 per bag to curb their use. However, the drive was conducted realising that banned plastic bags less than 50 micron are still being used. PMC has been forced to take tough action against the use of plastic bags after the recent agitation of villagers of Phursungi and Uruli Devachi where villagers did not allow PMC to unload unprocessed garbage and 15 per cent of the garbage contained polythene bags which cannot be processed. After the tussle between the villagers staying in the nearby garbage depots and PMC, the civic administration decided to take stringent steps to curb the use of polythene bags. Suresh Jagtap, head of solid waste management department of PMC, said, “We carried out a special drive in areas like Mahatma Phule Mandai, Nehru Chowk and Bhutkar Haud area where we found that fruits, vegetable vendors and meat vendors are openly using the banned polythene bags. We managed to collect 340 kilograms of polythene bags in a span of three days and we also collected fine of Rs70,000 from the shopkeepers.” “We also initiated the process of filing court cases against 30 vendors who were using banned polythene bags. The special drive will continue,” said Jagtap.