KOCHI: Kochi Metro Rail Limited (KMRL) in association with South Indian Bank (SIB) on Wednesday installed plastic recycling machines at three metro stations as part of the metro agency’s initiative to go green.
KMRL Managing Director Elias George and SIB managing director and CEO V.G. Mathew jointly inaugurated the machines at the Palarivattom metro station. The machines will also be available at Cochin University and Edappally stations too.
“The Kochi metro aims at becoming one of the greenest metro systems in the world, and the plastic bottle recycling project at our stations is a part of this endeavour. We aim to have such machines at other stations in collaboration with private partners like South Indian Bank,” said Mr. George.
SIB is sponsoring the first three machines as part of its corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative. KMRL will provide space for installing the machines at the stations in unpaid areas, so that even the general public can use them.
Wild West Media, the manufacturers of the machine, will be responsible for its operation and maintenance.
The highlight of the machine is that customers using the facility will be incentivised through issue of discount coupons at select commercial outlets. Food outlets and supermarkets will be linked with the machine manufacturer for provision of coupons. At present, three corporates are associated with the initiative.
The machines have been designed to dispose of and recover products effectively to be used for cost-effective means for recycling.
The scraped plastic will be sold to recycling vendors who will process scrap to produce plastic granules, and the end product will be used for textile manufacturing and road resurfacing.
