For Chembilode panchayat, plastic is not a menace

CHEMBILODE (KANNUR): You may be greeted with a frown if you carry plastic carry bags when visiting Chembilode panchayat. This is a place which has been trying hard to tackle the plastic menace for years now and has learnt the hard way that it is impossible to wish it away just like that. Chembilode is also a panchayat that has gone ahead and tried on its own ways to keep the menace under check and is, now, one of the few panchayats that has been able to get over the top of the problem.

For Chembilode, it has been a fairly long journey from the largely ineffectual plastic ban to plastic recycling to manufacture of value- added products. When it went in for the conventional route of plastic ban, it found plastic bags popping up all over the place in spite of all that it did to create awareness of its hazardous consequences. That is when the panchayat decided to set up a plant to reprocess the waste into granules. Soon, a 13-member Self-Help Group (SHG) was entrusted with the task of turning the granules into plastic rope with financial assistance from the Edakkad Block Panchayat. �The recycling and reprocessing units in our panchayat were the first such initiatives by any local body in the State, says panchayat vice-president M.V. Anil Kumar.