india

Updated: Apr 27, 2019 10:26 IST

The municipal corporation is leaving no stone unturned in beautifying the holy city, its pioneering initiative of rewarding people using the polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottle crushing machines near the Golden Temple with discount coupons to be redeemed at popular food and shopping stores has become a hit among both locals and tourists.

People using the plastic bottle crushing machine at Heritage Street in Amritsar on Friday.

On April 18, the municipal corporation installed 10 PET bottle crushers, worth ₹5 lakh each, on Heritage Street, outside the Golden Temple, which has the distinction of being the most-visited place in the holy city, under the Swachh Iconic Places (SIP) project.

To get the ball rolling, the MC adopted the slogan, ‘Throw trash, save cash’ and rewarded users with a 10-20% discount on seven food and shopping stores, including the famous Bharawan Da Dhaba and Punjabi Juttis stores.

Localites are all praises for the initiative, a resident, Mahima Sharma, says, “One often finds Heritage Street littered with plastic bottles, which reflects poorly on us. The discount coupons are an incentive for people to use the machines.The MC should install these machines all across the city.”

“I had only seen such machines in metropolitans. It was wonderful to see them in the Golden Temple complex. People across the country should take similar initiatives to reduce pollution caused due to plastic,” says Balram, a tourist from Pune, who has duly queued, to avail a discount at famous restaurants.

The machines’ operator, Rajan, says, “Each machine can crush 200 plastic bottles on daily. People need to enter their mobile numbers and drop the bottle in the machine and the crusher will automatically dispense a discount coupon. On an average, 100 plastic bottles are deposited in each machine daily and people often form queues to use it. I am sure their popularity will grow as the word spreads.”

Mayor Karamjit Singh Rintu, says, “Often plastic water bottles are refilled and resold in the market. The corporation collects tonnes of plastic bottles from garbage bins every day. Also, the plastic littered on streets is consumed by stray cattle. To tackle this problem and avoid littering on Heritage Street, we have installed these machines.”

“We are also working on increasing the number of restaurants and shops, which will provide discount to those using the machines,” he said, adding that similar machines will be installed across the city in near future.