Chief Election Commissioner Navin Chawla on Saturday appealed to the people of Arunachal Pradesh to work towards making the state cleaner, greener and plastic-free.
“I found Itanagar roads littered with lots of plastic waste...You are fortunate to have 82 per cent forest cover, but to maintain your environment you need to put plastic waste to good use,” he told a gathering here today on the occassion of World Environment Day.
He asked the local administration to replicate the recent experiment done in Tamil Nadu’s Madurai where plastic waste were used for blacktopping roads.
Narrating his experience, Mr. Chawla said while driving through Sivaganga district adjoining Madurai he found the roadsides full of plastic wastes. But in Madurai, roads are clean as all the plastic wastes in Madurai are collected, cut to pieces and used for blacktopping roads.
Governor Gen (retd) J. J. Singh who was also present at the function said the problem of plastic wastes, which had become acute in the State two years ago, had been reduced to a great extent after a ban was imposed on use of polythene bags.
He said as part of a solid waste management launched in the State capital, government-approved rag pickers collect segregated non-biodegradable solid waste and recyclable waste from each and every household in the city regularly.
