NOIDA Authority and Clean NOIDA, an initiative of HCL Foundation, launched the ‘Plastic Exchange Mobile Van’ for single-use plastic waste reduction as part of its ongoing efforts to make NOIDA India’s cleanest city. The ‘Plastic Exchange Mobile Van’ was inaugurated by Smt. Ritu Maheshwari, Chief Executive Officer, NOIDA Authority and Mr. Alok Varma, Project Director, Clean NOIDA.
The Plastic Exchange Mobile Van involves a Barter system, wherein, citizens would be given eco-friendly products (cloth bags, bamboo straw kits among others) in exchange of single use plastic items including PET bottles and polythene bags. The plastic collected through this drive will be channelized to the Indian Pollution Control Association, a certified recycler for safe disposal.
The project is aligned with the ‘RACE’ campaign, which was recently launched by the Government of Uttar Pradesh with the aim of reducing plastic usage, generating awareness among citizens, creating circular solution for disposal and engagement of one and all.
In a bid to phase out single-use plastic items by the end of 2022, the Govt. of India issued guidelines for states to ban the manufacture, import, stocking, distribution, sale, and use of identified single-use plastic items with low utility and high littering potential from July 1 across.
Clean NOIDA aims to sensitize the residents of NOIDA about the importance of proper disposal and segregation of waste to tackle the issue of open waste dumping in the city. NOIDA’s position in GoI’s nationwide cleanliness ranking (Swachh Survekshan) has improved from 354 in 2018 to 4 in 2021 (1-10 lakh population category). Significantly, NOIDA is currently India’s cleanest medium city. This was achieved through the combined efforts of Noida Authority and Clean NOIDA undertaken over the last three years. Together we have undertaken several campaigns for waste management and disposal with RWAs and urban villages and drove community engagement efforts and technology implementation initiatives.
