70kg of banned single-use plastic confiscated from 20 stores

The Amritsar Municipal Corporation seized 70 kg of single-use plastic from 20 shops on Saturday evening and issued appeals to shopkeepers here.

Following the directives of MC Commissioner Gulpreet Singh Aulakh, a team of MC Health Department seized 70 kg of single-use plastic from 20 shops of IDH market on Saturday evening and distributed calls to them.

Led by MC Health Officer Dr. Kiran Kumar, Chief Sanitary Inspector Vijay Gill, Sanjeev Arora and Anil Dogra and the health department team visited the IDH market. When the team checked the stores, a large quantity of single-use plastic envelopes was recovered.

Dr. Kumar said the government banned these disposable envelopes two and a half years ago. Earlier, the civic body had issued over 900 challans and recovered 1,550 kg of single-use plastic through an anti-single-use plastic campaign. He said the municipal corporation collected a fine of around Rs 5.5 lakh in lieu of challans.

Today, when the campaign was relaunched in IDH market, the team had a dispute with shop owners. He said when the team retrieved single-use plastic envelopes and started dispensing callans, a war of words broke out between the shop owners and the MC team.

Some people even said that they were unaware of any sanctions restrictions on the sale of single-use plastic envelopes. He said that nowadays people should use social media generously and make an effort to learn more about the single-use plastic ban law.