Campaign against single-use plastic launched at HAL market in Bengaluru

The Circular Waste Solutions project launched a single-use plastic-free campaign at the HAL market on Saturday. 

Supported by the Mitigation Action (formerly NAMA) Facility and GIZ, the four-month-long campaign aims to eliminate the use of single-use plastic (SUP) in markets in the city and encourage the use of alternatives. 

The team surveyed a few markets in the city with the support of market associations and resident groups or citizen volunteers. They opted for the Sudhama Nagar market to experiment with this campaign in July. Based on their learnings from that trial run, they launched the campaign at the much bigger HAL market that houses over 250 vendors. 

The event saw a mass awareness initiative by market and BBMP authorities and a play titled ‘Plastic Asura’ by the HAL skit team to educate vendors and buyers about the ill effects of SUPs on people’s health and the environment. 

Collaborating with local tailors from self-help groups, the project also set up the ‘Cheela Mela’ (cloth bag fair) to upcycle people’s old clothes into cloth bags. These tailors will be present at the market through the weekend to create cloth bags that will reduce dependency on plastic bags and bring down cloth waste. 

The event was attended by the BBMP chief marshal Col Rajbir Singh and an assistant executive engineer of the BBMP solid waste management department, besides other officials, who extended their support to the campaign and spoke about the importance of switching to plastic alternatives.