Statue of Unity to be free of plastic bottles
Statue of Unity (SoU) at Kevadiya, a grand tourist destination will soon be free of plastic drinking water bottles.
The forest department will introduce returnable glass water bottles. These will be no ordinary bottles containing RO water in packaged plastic drinking water bottles. These will contain purified water from Narmada.
To add variety the water will be infused with herb flavours that will be available based on the weather — tulsi for rainy season, mint and fennel as coolants for summer and ginger to nip the winter bite.
The environment-friendly alternative named as ‘Ekta Paani’ by additional chief secretary (ACS), forests, environment and climate change, Dr Rajiv Kumar Gupta, aims to be zero waste.
Pratik Pandya, deputy conservator of forests, Narmada, (social forestry) said ” “The packaging unit will be set up at Ekta Nursery at Kevadiya and will be run by Ekta Mahila Mandal Trust in association with Vadodara-based startup, Srishti Lifescience. Besides reducing plastic menace, the glass bottle plant will be run exclusively by local tribal women, he said.
Prateek Patel, founder of Srishti Lifescience said “Initially, the production capacity of the plant will be 3,000 bottles per day which will be ramped up to 14,000 daily soon. “Consumers can return the empty bottles for an attractive buyback pricing or even choose to carry it home as SoU memoir. This initiative is our attempt to reduce carbon footprint and also eliminate the risk of micro-plastic intake by human beings,’’
PositiveNewsCorner 