Cloth bags replace single-use plastics at municipal markets

Kolkata: The West Bengal Pollution Control Board (WBPCB) has joined hands with the Information Technology and Electronics (IT&E) department to curb the use of single-use plastic in markets in the municipal markets Kolkata, Bidhannagar and Howrah.

WBPCB has already installed cloth bag vending machines in 50 odd markets in Kolkata and Bidhannagar.

“We have set a target of installing cloth bag vending machines in 100 municipal markets in Kolkata, Bidhannagar and Howrah to provide an alternative for plastic to the shoppers in the municipal markets.

Such machines developed by the IT & E department, were made operational in 50 markets. In the next three months, we will be fulfilling our target of doing the same for 100 markets,” said a WBPCB official.

Gariahat, VIP market at Kankurgachi, Behala Sakher Bazar, New Market (both old and new part) already have the facilities.

CA Market in Bidhannagar has been the torch bearer where two such machines were installed in March. Shoppers at CA Market have shifted to using cloth bags with shopkeepers refusing to issue plastic bags.

The capacity of the machines vary according to the demand of the markets but on an average a machine can dispense 200 cloth bags. A person has to insert a Rs 10 coin or pay through a mobile wallet by scanning a QR code for a bag to be dispensed.

“Presently, an agency has been roped in which is manually recharging the machines after bags get exhausted. We are developing a system through which we will receive alerts about the stock in the machines and accordingly, the agency will go and recharge,” the official maintained.

Thinner plastic bags which are difficult to recycle and reuse are choking the drainage systems, making river beds and sea beds dead zones and entering our food chain.