Page 32 - ARUBA TODAY

A32 FEATURE
Tuesday 5 June 2018
In India, a trio of unlikely heroes wages war on plastic

By RISHABH R. JAIN goes back as a waste."
Associated Press While Prakritii initially made
NEW DELHI (AP) — For more most of its income from ex-
than 25 years, Ram Nath ports to Europe and the U.S.,
has lived on the banks of Bardhan said the market
the Yamuna River under a for eco-friendly products is
19th-century iron bridge. growing in India, especially
Each morning, the wiry among younger people
man walks a few steps from who value quality over
his makeshift hut and enters price. His company gener-
the black, sludgy waters of ates more than $150,000 in
one of India's most polluted revenue each year.
rivers. He is fishing for trash. In places, the trend is grow-
"This is the only work we ing.
have," said the 40-year-old, Some fancy restaurants in
sorting through a pile of and around New Delhi are
plastic bottles, bags, and doing away with plastic
cast-off electronics. straws and replacing them
Hundreds of garbage col- with paper straws. That's
lectors live on the Yamuna's largely because of Aditya
banks in New Delhi, making Mukarji, a student who
$2 to $4 per day recycling launched his campaign
plastic waste collected after seeing a video of two
from the river. While Nath veterinarians trying to re-
doesn't think of himself as move a plastic straw from
an environmentalist, he is a turtle's nose.
one of a handful of New "People listen more to chil-
Delhi residents waging war dren bringing up environ-
against the tsunami of plas- mental concerns," said
tic threatening to swamp Mukarji, who has helped
India. They include a 9th- replace more than 500,000
grade student who con- plastic straws at restaurants
vinces posh restaurants to and hotels since he started
give up plastic straws and his campaign in March.
a businessman whose com- If nothing else, India hosting
pany makes plates and In this photo taken May 28, 2018, Ram Nath, 40, sorts reusable trash he fished out from Yamuna, the World Environment Day
India's sacred river that flows through the capital of New Delhi.
bowls from palm leaves. Associated Press has made environmental
India, which hosts U.N. protection a hot topic — at
World Environment Day on to 50 meters tall. Last year, Chintan. plateware, which has the least briefly — in a country
June 5, can use all the help two people were killed Mukherjee, who has spent feel of thick paper plates, where trash is everywhere.
it can get. This year's theme when a large part of one years raising awareness biodegrades in seven to Tuesday will see numer-
is "Beat Plastic Pollution." of the city's dumps crashed and creating localized ef- ten days, he said. The com- ous official environmental
With more than 15 million down onto them. forts to curb plastic pollution pany doesn't harvest any gatherings across India,
people, New Delhi and its "All these products which credits the Bharatiya Jana- palm trees, but waits for clean up campaigns along
surrounding cities produce we use because of con- ta Party-led government leaves to fall to the ground. the Yamuna and mall food
an estimated 17,000 tons venience take many hun- for making waste manage- "In this entire process, we courts agreeing to forgo
of trash daily, according to dreds of years" to even ment and pollution a more are not harming the envi- plastic plateware for one
Indian officials and environ- partially decompose, said serious issue. ronment," said Bardhan. day.
mentalists. That requires im- Chitra Mukherjee, an en- "It is a collaborative effort "We are generating some- The hope is that everything
mense dumps, hills of stink- vironmental expert and between not only bureau- thing from the waste, peo- doesn't go back to normal
ing trash that measure up head of operations at crats, but researchers, en- ple are loving it, and then it on Wednesday.q
vironmentalists who have
been brought on board
to make some progressive
policies," she said.
But policy and impact can
mean different things. Like
the repeated bans in New
Delhi on using thin plastic
bags. The latest regula-
tion came with a hefty $75
fine. Yet a trip to nearly any
shop in New Delhi makes
clear how widely the ban is
flouted.
Amardeep Bardhan be-
lieves he can make a dif-
ference. In this photo taken May 28, 2018, Vaibhav Jaiswal, co-founder
In this photo taken June 1, 2018, a family of trash collectors sort His company, Prakritii, of Prakritii, or nature, a company that manufactures eco-friend-
reusable trash which they collected from a garbage dump in makes plates and bowls ly dinnerware, inspects his products in his warehouse in New
New Delhi, India. Delhi, India.
Associated Press from the leaves of south In- Associated Press
dia's areca palm trees. The