Ban hits takeaways as restaurants ask people to bring own box

The blanket ban on plastic is affecting restaurants as their food parcels are coming down. Out of around 10 lakh people who visit restaurants every day in Bengaluru, one lakh have takeaways.

Nearly 2,000 hotels are associated with the Bruhat Bengaluru Hoteliers’ Association. Seven per cent of them are now asking customers to bring their own boxes for food parcel, according to the association’s treasurer, Veerendra Kamath.

Restaurants are exhausting their present stock of plastic boxes and bags and are not buying more, as they were doing every week or fortnight earlier.

The main reason being that plastic manufacturers and dealers shut up shop immediately after the government notified the ban on March 11, 2016.

Some hoteliers say the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has started inspecting hotels and restaurants and penalising them if they use plastic, regardless of whether its thickness is below or above 40 microns. The fine ranges from Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000. Restaurants are considering using aluminium foils for food parcel. They are also counting on an application against the ban filed by the Karnataka State Plastic Association (KSPA) before the High Court. They hope the ban will be restricted to plastic below 40 microns or the court will direct the government to bring alternatives.