Puducherry's plastic challenge

Puducherry: Puducherry has joined the select club of few states that have banned thin plastic bags that can't be recycled. But implementation is becoming a big challenge and the government has realized that to make it a successful campaign one needs to make it a people's movement.

The ban on plastic bags in Puducherry imposed three months ago has become a joke quite literally as Polythene and plastic bags less than 50 micron thick continue to be sold and used.

People are used to spending just forty paise for a carry bag. But a 50 micron bag costs a rupee and fifty paise and people are finding it difficult to pay this much every time.

But things may soon change as this Union Territory has roped in NGOs for a year long campaign to make a plastic free Puducherry a reality.

Soon awareness signboards will dot this tourist hot-spot.

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Chief Minister, Puducherry says, "We want people's cooperation. This is a people friendly campaign.

An activist says, "This is going to be a campaign to save the earth, a campaign to save our environment.."

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And in a year this former French colony is hoping to turn into a model state when it comes to saying no to plastic bags.