Khandre vows to phase out single-use plastic

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: Forests, Ecology and Environment Minister Eshwar Khandre on Monday said he would prioritise reducing the use of single-use plastics. He made the comments at a World Environment Day event organised by News Trail in association with the Special Interest Group on Humanitarian Technology (SIGHT) of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE).

The programme marked the beginning of a month-long awareness campaign and ‘Ideathon’ for students on how to beat plastic pollution. Khandre pointed out that Karnataka was the first state to ban single-use plastic by way of a 2016 notification. He said that to implement the rule, one needed to create awareness at the local government level, which would rope in schoolchildren as well.

“Recently, corporation (BBMP) officials carried out raids and seized massive amounts of such material,” he said. “There is a slogan in our Forest department that we should find a solution to the plastic problem. To implement it, we have formed a team, comprising several officials who have displayed interest and can even make suggestions. We will take advice from you as well. We will do this work for a year. I can’t say we’ll ban plastic overnight. However, we can reduce its usage with our honest efforts,” he said.

Khandre added that if awareness creation on plastic use didn’t yield positive results, the State government would consider legal action against violators. He also stressed on the need to increase the green cover. “We are distributing a total of two crore saplings to all districts through the (Forest) department. We are disbursing them to different organisations and farmers. Our intention is to increase the number of saplings to five crores,” he said.

“I visited Bellandur Lake the day before yesterday. There is the NGT (National Green Tribunal), as well as the Supreme Court and State government. Several parties are working to put things right. When you visit the lake, you feel sad. Tons of poisonous waste is being let into the lake. In our endeavour to clean the water body, we have removed half of the pollutants. Much still remains, which we will rid the lake of,” Khandre went on to add.