Novel idea goes waste as plastic returns to haunt Tura

TURA: The West Garo Hills district administration’s bold move to ban bottled water could have changed the face of Tura and protected its environment had the system not yielded to pressure from the profit-makers and the citizens not succumbed to the ease of urban life.
With three weeks of prohibition on the sale of water packaged in plastic bottles, the town as well as the water bodies witnessed a drastic drop in waste pollution.
The Gandrak stream that flows through the busy Chandmari market and the Babupara stream that passes through the market area were found reasonably clean and devoid of fresh plastic waste.
However, the resumption of sales has brought back the waste menace and local environmentalists fear large scale plastic pollution.
Since the beginning of the week, streets, drains and roadside bins were found strewn with plastic bottles. The concentration of plastic waste is the maximum in the main market area and certain localities such as Beldarpara.
Deputy Commissioner Ram Singh, who had spearheaded the movement against plastic use, was shocked at the return of plastic waste during his early morning inspection of the town’s busy areas.
“This is a tragedy,” lamented Singh, who has been trying to bring about change even at the grassroots level through various initiatives, plastic ban being the boldest of all.
Traders and whole-sellers have been importing tonnes of packaged drinking water ever since the district administration gave into demands for reintroduction of packaged drinking water following complaints of water shortage in market areas. “We are already in the process of installing more RO water filters in market areas to bridge the gap,” said Singh and hoped that soon packaged drinking water would be passé.