It’s a crime we’re all guilty of — buying cloth bags and then forgetting to use it. The recent ban on plastic products is giving rise to ‘green’ companies with innovative ways to cut plastic out of our lives.
In 2015, volunteers, under the banner of Rent-a-Bag, distributed cloth bags, which could be returned and reused.
They found that while the bags were being used, once they became soiled, they went straight to the bin. Hence, they came up with the idea of forming Stonesoup, a social enterprise to oversee point-to-point usage of reusable bags. Stonesoup currently offers cloth bags in 350 stores for Rs. 20, 30 and 40. The customer can return the bag to the store in a week and receive a full refund. A charge of Rs. 2 is imposed for every week after. When the bag gets soiled, they can be returned by the retailer to Stonesoup, who will wash it and replace it with a clean one.
“Shopkeepers are charged between Rs. 300 and Rs. 700 a month for the service, a small number considering a store usually spends anywhere between Rs. 3,000 and Rs. 35,000 a month on plastic covers,” said Malini Parmar, founding partner at Stonesoup and a member of SWMRT and Kasa Muktha Bellandur.
But retail stores are still struggling. And many organic food companies are at the head of the campaign for a plastic-free city. “We don't use plastic anywhere in our distribution system,” said S. Madhusudhan, founder of Back2basics, which delivers farm fresh vegetables in the city.
While restaurants and food delivery outlets in the city have stopped delivering food in plastic bags, they continue to pack food in plastic containers.
Personnel at a few stores seemed nonplussed on how to replace the ubiquitous containers while a medical shop owner urged a customer to take the billed items in a plastic bag so that he can finish his stock ‘before the police come for inspection’. It looks like the ban came too soon for some.
