RailEnquiry

The Central Railway’s ban on plastic has yielded positive results, as the amount of garbage at important stations on the network has reduced substantially. According to the CR’s estimates, the amount of plastic wrappers has gone down by 2.5 lakh ever since the ban has been imposed. Food items packed in plastic wrappings, laminated plastics, metalised film packets, sulphite paper packing and aluminum foil packing have been banned since May 21. “According to a rough estimate, around five lakh plastic packets were sold from 200-odd stalls on our network. Out of these, we assume that around half of the packets were thrown on tracks or stations premises, which are no longer found as is evident by the lesser quantity of garb-age collected at railway stations,” said a senior CR officer. Citing examples, the officer said that around 2.5 tonne of garbage was collected daily at Chha-trapati Shivaji Terminus that has now dropped to 2.25 tonne. “The amount of waste has come down, and the cleaners can make more rounds, as the process of cleaning has become faster due to low garbage collection,” said O.P. Karothia, station manager, Kalyan railway station.