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India will be celebrating the World Environment Day with the initiative to ban the Plastic water pouches on public roads, gardens and government offices from June 5 as the theme of this year's World Environment Day is "Beat Plastic Pollution".
As part of the initiative, the Rajkot Municipal Corporation on Monday announced a ban on the sale and use of water pouches on Monday. The ban will come to effect from Tuesday, under the section 376 of the Bombay Provincial Municipal Corporation Act, 1949.
The municipal corporation stated that "People tend to throw water pouches on the roads after use, which ends up choking drainage lines," adding that it, in turn, creates health problems due to drain water spilling out into the open.
The civic body said that violators of this ban would be penalized under section 376 of the BPMC Act, and if required, under section 133 of the Criminal Procedure Code which empowers a magistrate to pass an order for "removal of nuisance".
The state government, to mark World Environment Day tomorrow, will also hold a week-long environment and cleanliness drive by educating people in 100 villages, spread across 15 districts, on plastic waste recycling, a release said.
The “Rurban” areas as recognized by the state's Rural Development Ministry, will take up the initiative for reduction and reuse of plastic, which includes about 100 villages.
Public spaces in these villages, including the main entrances, religious places, main roads and markets will be cleared of plastic waste and other recycled products, it stated.
During this project for environment health maintenance, a week-long drive will take place to make the people aware of all the natural methods of farming, like micro compost process to make fertilizers and demonstrations and will also be guided to use the shredding machines to dispose the plastic waste separately among the other waste.
