Economy

Ooty was the first in India to enforce a plastic ban. Here is how the town made it a huge success

Updated : June 29, 2018 06:24 AM IST

Over the last decade, awareness about the harmful effect of using plastic has spread in the Nilgiris.

Prior to the ban in the district, plastic was being dumped into the Ooty Lake, a big attraction for tourists.

As you leave Mettupalayam, a small town at the foothills of the Western Ghats, and wind your way up the myriad hairpin bends that lead you to all the way up to Ooty, the temperature drops a full 10 degrees Celsius.

Through the mist, it isn’t so hard to spot the dozens of green boards with messages that implore you to avoid the use of plastic. By the time you reach Charring Cross, Ooty’s biggest junction, the message is dinned into your brain.

It is widely regarded in these parts that awareness on avoiding the use of plastic came about during the award-winning ‘Operation Blue Mountain’ launched by the former district collector of Ooty, Supriya Sahu, in 2002.

Ms Sahu, who is now the director-general of Doordarshan, brought about a radical change in Nilgiris district when she decided to ban the use of disposable plastic of any thickness.

Today, paper and cloth bags have replaced plastic bags at provision stores and supermarkets in the district.

Over two weeks ago, the district administration brought under the ambit of the ban 17 types of plastic including thermocol, silver foil and paper cups. The use of plastic can draw heavy penalties from the administration as a popular chain restaurant found out recently.

Over the last decade, awareness about the harmful effect of using plastic has spread in the Nilgiris, thanks to many campaigns by the state government, district administration, local bodies and citizens groups.

The district is a biodiversity hotspot with many species of flora and fauna present here that are found nowhere else in the world. The use of plastic, especially by tourists during the summer months of April and May, is seen to be harmful to the district’s fragile ecosystem. Ooty, 86 km from Coimbatore, is a popular tourist destination.

A people's movement

On June 5 this year, on the occasion of World Environment Day, Tamil Nadu chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami announced in the state assembly that the manufacture, storage and sales of disposable plastic will be banned in the state from January 1, 2019.

It is understood that the state will be taking a leaf out of the stellar success in one of its own districts.

Prior to the ban in the district, plastic was being dumped into the Ooty Lake, a big attraction for tourists. Buffaloes, a sacred animal for local tribes like Badagas and Todas, were found with kilos of plastic in their stomachs.

Street corners were littered with huge dumps of plastic, a sight which is increasingly rare these days.

To truly understand the ramifications of the ban, one has to visit the market maintained by the local municipality, which is a stone’s throw from Commercial Road, the nerve centre of the town.

Vendors and public here no longer grumble about the ban on plastic bags. From a policy initiative enforced by locals laws and civic body resolutions, the war against plastic today is truly a people’s movement. “I understand it is for the greater common good. Minor inconveniences are more than welcome,” M Ganesh, a provision shop owner on Walsham Road said.

Nandhu Sundaram is a Ooty-based journalist passionate about film and Tamil Nadu politics.