Bring Plastic Waste and Eat a Full Meal at India's First Garbage Cafe in Chhattisgarh
Ambikapur, a city in Chhattisgarh, is the chosen to be the second cleanest city in India, after Indore. No wonder that the Ambikapur Municipal Corporation (AMC) has taken another step to make the city plastic-free in an unprecedented way.
AMC has opened one-of-a-kind café in the city called Garbage Café. The café is named uniquely for a reason – it feeds poor and homeless and also helps in removing plastic waste from the city. Wish to know more about this brilliant initiative? Read on!
The plan is to provide free shelter to poor people, especially the rag pickers, who spent their entire day collecting plastic waste in the city. Not only this, full meals will be provided to people who bring the plastic waste to the café. Free food will be provided in return for 1 kg of plastic, and breakfast will be served on the submission of half kg of plastic waste. In this way, we will be able to save our planet from the degrading and harmful effects of plastic and feed those who cannot afford a day’s meal for themselves and their families.
As per reports, the government has approved a budget of ₹ 6 lakh for setting up and maintaining the café, which is located near the main bus stop of the city. It is approved with a hope that other cities will follow this idea and set up similar cafes or properties in their areas as well.
"Our door-to-door waste collection process is already in place. We also re-sell plastic. The initiative will become successful,” says the Mayor of Ambikapur.
It is the initiative of Swach Bharat Abhiyan, an organization which regularly comes up with such innovative ideas to preserve our beautiful planet. Earlier, India’s first road, made from plastic waste, was constructed in Ambikapur under this initiative. Around 8 lakh plastic bags were used for its construction by mixing plastic and asphalt together, which makes the road durable because of non-permeation of water. The city plans to construct another road with the collected plastic waste in the bistro. This scheme is also a part of the cleanliness campaign of the organization. Ambikapur is the second largest city in India under the ‘Sanitation Campaign’.
Last year, the same city was ranked 40th on the list of top municipal regulation in strong waste management. Garbage Café is expected to dramatically improve the city’s rank in waste management, this year.
Even so, many residents of the city are in opposition of the new scheme. Many of them are of opinion that a similar scheme has already been introduced by Dr. Raman Singh, which provides poor people with Rs. 1 per kg grain.
However, many still believe that it is a welcoming step in the lives of many garbage pickers as well as the environment for obvious reasons.
"Rag pickers used to give garbage to private people in exchange for money. Now, when they give plastic garbage to the government, they will get food in return. The city would become more beautiful after this," said a local.
Whatever it is, we just hope that this initiative makes sure that no one in the city sleeps with an empty stomach!
