What can be more heart warming than to see a poor and illiterate female farmer giving gyan to a well-dressed and seemingly educated man on the need to avoid plastic bag? The gentleman, who came with a polythene cover to buy vegetables, quickly apologised saying he would remember to carry a cloth bag on his next visit to the uzhavar sandhai . So was Pandiammal aware that the Agriculture Officer K.Arumugam was watching her? No. She was simply doing her duty and was perhaps a reflection of the changing attitudes of people who do not want the city to mutate into a gigantic litter bin.
Inside Madurai’s biggest uzhavar sandhai in Bibikulam that comes alive at dawn and bustles with activity till past noon every day, there is a silent fight on against the proliferation of plastic pollution. It was the District Collector, K.Veera Raghava Rao’s idea to give the plastic bags the boot in the city’s farmer markets. “The ultimate goal is to make every customer carry reusable cloth bags,” he says.
It was in January this year that he brought the farmers of four markets in Anna Nagar, Palanganatham, Anaiyur and the Chokkikulam uzhavar sandhai at Bibikulam, to the forefront of the movement to keep the single-use plastic carry bags out of their business.
“The transition from the Earth choking plastic bags to eco-friendly reusable bags can happen when everybody is provided with and is willing to change to better and safer alternatives,” he says. And as a first step towards this change, the district administration provided 30,000 cloth bags in the first month to the farmers of the four markets. They were strictly told not to sell vegetables and fruits to customers in plastic bags. Instead, they could use the cloth bags given to them free in two sizes -- of three and five kg capacity and charge the customer Rs.15 per bag, that is 50 per cent of the cost price.
Usually any types of ban are followed by a spasm of behavioural change and do not last long. But it is six months now and the Collector says, it is a feel-good that the vendors are no longer keeping plastic bags and the move to shift is also encouraging the customers to bring bags from home.
In these preceding weeks, a penalty of Rs.500 was imposed thrice when a farmer was caught selling his/her produce in plastic bags.
On any given weekday at least 3,000 customers (on weekends it reaches 5,000) walk in to Chokkikulam farmers’ market during those seven hours to purchase farm fresh produce directly from the 150-odd farmers. While the Collector wants to see plastic completely eliminated from Madurai markets (there are three more weekly uzhavar sandhais at Melur, Tirumangalam and Usilampatti), he feels more than enforcing a ban, people should voluntarily change their habits to address the serious issue of plastic pollution.
Noorjahan, a resident of Sellur, admits carrying kilos of assorted vegetables in one or two bags is hard labour. But she also understands plastic bags are going from convenient to widely-cursed.
It is a good idea to opt for a reusable bag, says A.Kamaraj, retired Army jawan, a regular at the uzhavar sandhai for the last seven years. “If we make small changes in our shopping habits, we can have a big impact on our environment and the planet,” he says and also adds with pride, even before the cloth bag measure came into being he was using one. And now he requests people coming to the uzhavar sandhai to use or bring reusable bags only.
In fact, an hour’s announcement is blared on the speakers every morning, informs Arumugam. “We remind the people of the damage caused by plastic bags and request them to show that they are environmentally conscious,” he says. It is yielding results.
With the stray incidents of violation, the city administration is, however, still reluctant to declare the uzhavar sandhais 100 per cent plastic free. But with the drastic decrease in the use of plastic bags at the four uzhavar sandhais , the Collector is hopeful that plastic shopping bags will soon be history here.
“The Government initiative is to curb the use,” he says, “the main revolution has to come from the customers.” The Collector also plans to extend the scheme to the central market, small groceries, kiosks and eateries by the roadside. “If we really care about our and the Earth’s future, it is time we severe our attachment to plastic shopping bags,” he asserts.
From slogan to a norm, is need of the hour. Are you ready to make the change?
Eco etiquettes
Tamil Nadu was one of the first States to introduce a pioneering legislative in 2002 – The Tamil Nadu Plastic Articles (Prohibition of Sale, Storage, Transport and Use) Bill, which bans use of plastic that is less than 20 microns thick and those that cannot be recycled.
In 2002 Udhagamandalam became the first successful district under the then Collector Supriya Sahu to stop use of disposable plastics.
In 2011, the TN Pollution Control Board came out with a draft bill to ban use of plastic carry bags made of virgin plastic or recycled plastic less than 60 microns thick.
In 2013, Salem City Municipal Corporation implemented a ban on manufacturing, sale and use of plastic bags below 40 microns.
The Dindigul Corporation has imposed a ban on use of plastic bags below 40 microns in thickness by street and flower vendors, eateries, fruit sellers, grocery shops and hotels.
