Hyderabad: A software engineer's efforts at fighting against the menace of plastic have begun to bear fruit in Hyderabad.
Dosapati Ramu is determined towards his goal of fighting diligently against single-use plastic in his city. For the same purpose, he has launched a program under which he is offering small plants and saplings to anyone who brings even a small amount of plastic to him.
For this program called 'Plant for Plastic', thousands of plants have been brought in from East Godavari Kadiyam. Ramu has not determined any specific amount of plastic to be brought in. He is in fact, providing plants in return for even a small packet of chips.
The collected plastic is then delivered to Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) free of charge for recycling and further processing. To fulfil his goal of fighting the peril of plastic, Ramu has taken up another challenge called the 'Tiffin Box Challenge'.
Under this challenge, he is encouraging people to use tiffin boxes instead of single-use plastic to carry meat to their houses. "People in Hyderabad, especially on Sundays, use so much of Single-use plastic. They can at least avoid carrying meat in those plastic bags and use tiffin boxes instead," he said.
Ramu says that he isn't asking people to stop eating meat but contributing a bit towards the environment too. He initially challenged his friends for this task and his efforts have now started bearing good results.
The challenge is now expanding with more people taking it up every day. At an individual level, he visits local meat markets in the city to spread awareness among meat shop owners.
However, meat shop owners in Hyderabad have not begun adhering to this new challenge.
