Pune: A day after Municipal Commissioner Saurabh Rao assured informally that action will not be taken against secondary packaging, only polythene bags weighing 3,000 kg were confiscated on the fourth day of the raids.
Suresh Jagtap, head of solid waste management department of PMC said, “While the drive to collect plastic from households and commercial establishments was initiated two months ago, i.e. from the time the State government released the GR on March 23, strict action was taken on those using banned plastic after June 23.”
So far, the civic body has collected more than 55 tonnes of banned plastic material and in the last two days itself, more than 15 tonnes of banned plastic was confiscated in the city, said Jagtap.
“The civic chief had told Pune District Retail Traders Association and Mithai, Farsan and Dairy Association, Pune on Monday that no action will be initiated against those who are using secondary packaging. Therefore, on Tuesday, the raids were conducted on only those shops which had been using single use plastic (polythene bags). The actions were conducted on a total of 37 shops in the city. Around Rs 1.73 lakh fine has been collected from defaulters and 3,000 kg of polythene bags has been seized. Moreover, 1,000 kg of polythene bags were seized alone from a shop in Raviwar Peth,” said Jagtap.
Jagtap also informed that all seized plastic will be directly sent to the processing unit at Vadgaon plant to create refuse derived fuel (RDF). He said, “The confiscated plastic will be sent for processing in a phase wise manner. Depending on the requirement, the capacity of the processing plant will be increased. Till now, the confiscated plastic has not been sent to the processing plant but it will be dispatched soon.”
