Plastic has become a part of our everyday life, no matter how much we deny it. Among them, the single-use plastic contributes to our day-day survival. Single-use plastics, often also referred to as disposable plastics, are commonly used in packaging and include items intended to be used only once before they are thrown away or recycled. We generally use single-use plastics in the form of disposable coffee cups, straws for coconut water, plastic spoons for lunch and many more. With the plastic pollution on the rise, many take efforts to curb down the problem.

Eco-friendly alternatives to single-use plastic items

On December 4, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) imposed a ban on single-use plastic items at its 16 airports across the country. The new move is followed by a survey done by Quality Council of India (QCI) and it denotes that air travellers will not get any single-use plastic items like straws, plastic cutlery and plastic plates etc at passenger terminals and city side. The 16 airports declared as single-use plastic free are: Indore, Bhopal, Ahmadabad, Bhubaneswar, Tirupati, Trichy, Vijayawada, Dehradun, Chandigarh, Vadodara, Madurai, Raipur, Vizag, Pune, Kolkata and Varanasi.

According to the Hindustan Times, the AAI is taking help of the Quality Council of India to assess/check the implementation of the ban. The ban would be fully implemented by January 31. “Rampant modernisation and commercialisation are leading to exerting our planet and making it devoid of its natural resources. Being an environmentally conscious public sector enterprise, the AAI has decided to make its airports plastic free by banning the use of single-use plastic items on the premises across the country,” said an AAI spokesperson.

Apart from these 16 airports, The Week reports that the nation’s bigger and privately-run airports are far from achieving this environmental objective. Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport, India’s biggest and busiest, run by private operator GMR will be plastic-free only by the end of this year, as the Union government's target is year 2022. The Bengaluru International Airport has also been moving in that direction. It is said that AAI also implemented to pave the roads outside Chennai or Madurai airport using plastic waste from the airport. According to a 2016 International Air Transport Association survey, flights generate 5.2 million tonnes of waste; that is roughly the same amount of waste a big metropolitan Indian city spawns in two years!

“AAI is also enhancing its waste management systems and promoting the use of eco-friendly sustainable alternatives progressively like use of bio-degradable garbage bags in the garbage bins and installation of plastic bottle crushing machine at airports. AAI airports have also started various awareness campaigns for sensitising all stakeholders specially passengers towards the cause and to drive engagement and cooperation from all of them,” the AAI spokesperson added.

Other moves such as Vistara, a joint venture between the Tatas and Singapore Airlines, have been ahead in the green initiative by leaps and bounds. It is the only Indian carrier that uses oxo-biodegradable cutlery and serves meals in environment-friendly certified cartons. The airline further plans to replace plastic casseroles with aluminium, and use wooden or paper straws instead of plastic straws. Other airlines have followed suit. Air India is considering using bone china plates instead of plastic, though they are presently a business class and first class prerogative. Jet Airways has reportedly thought of using biodegradable boxes and insulated boxes for hot and cold items though the airline has been cutting down on food service in many of its classes due to its financial exigency. Yet, still many airlines have still not commented on what they will do to reduce plastic use in areas beyond food. Let’s hope for the best that, these initiatives will result better compared to the last decade’s substandard replacement of plastic cups in Indian trains with khullars (earthern cups) which led to a backlash and got quietly replaced by paper cups.