Eco friendly Bags- a plausible option.

1.1.1.      Eco friendly bags - An alternative for plastic

Sacrifice some greed and make some compromises – a creative solution to plastics. Say No to plastic and use eco friendly products

The initiative intends to encourage eco friendly practices in people through the use of alternative sources of plastic and reducing its usage. It plans to supply eco friendly cloth & paper bags by coordinating local production units and benefiting them through advancing environmental friendly concepts. Along with the production and supply of eco friendly carry bags in shops it also envisages awareness creation to the community on the hazardous effects of plastics.

·         Reduce the consumption of plastic carry bags by ensuring them to adapt eco friendly alternatives.

·         Encouraging the supply of eco friendly carry bags instead of plastic carry bags in all houses and shops through local production units

·         Develop a system/mechanism for achieving the target of plastic free municipality.

·         Benefitting the local community along with the promotion of eco friendly practices.

Complete banning of plastic with immediate effect is not at all practical but it is expected to start with growing awareness among community about the bad effects of plastic and the promotion of reduction and reuse practices. By supplying eco friendly bags to each household and persuading them to use it as permanent basis helps achieve this objective in a short span of time. Good impetus from LSGs, SHGs, NGOs and effective support from industries are essential to achieve this target.

Technical support and financial support is the back bone of every project.  The authorities must have to provide proper technical and financial support to the community/SHG.  Training programs must be conducted for the community by the Government or NGOs.  They should also have to provide the latest technologies that help to produce the product in low cost and in limited time.

As part of the corporate social responsibility task, industries can take proper initiative for the sponsorship of the production unit and the organizations such as Kudumbasree, and NGOs must conduct the awareness programs for the community about the advantages of using paper bags and cloth bags.

Sponsorship

In order to ensure the supply of eco friendly bags at reasonable price, industry can support through sponsorship, financial support, advertisements, promoting units etc.

Give and take 

Paper, including news paper is the major raw material needed for the production of eco friendly bags. This raw material is largely available in hotels, shops and houses. Industry can provide news paper/paper to production units and take back as paper bag. It will be in a mutual beneficial mechanism like waging employees, discounts etc.