AlIMS pledges to boycott usage of single-use plastic on its campus

Celebrating Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) on Wednesday organised an awareness drive to educate people against single-use plastic. AIIMS has also launched a slogan- ‘Reduce, Reuse and Recycle,’ to sensitise people over the harmful effects of single-use plastic.The hospital administration along with 400 participants including the society of young scientists and, the entire hospital staff pledged to get rid of single-use plastic from the hospital campus.

AIIMS bans single-use plastics

“In the past, we had organised ‘Kaya Kalap Abhiyan’ to make people aware about cleanliness. Now, as our Prime Minister has said that India should ban single-use of plastic, we at AIIMS have taken a pledge to curtail the use of plastic. For this, we will work on the lines of - Reduce, Reuse and Recycle,” Dr. DK Sharma, Medical Superintendent said while talking to a news agency.

“We are doing separate segregation of biomedical waste and plastic waste here. We have hired a dedicated vendor to segregate plastic waste, sterilise, shred it in small particles for further reuse and recycle,” Dr. Sharma said.

While attending an event last week, Union Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan had pressed on the importance of sensitisation to reduce plastic usage.

“We have to make a plastic-free India. So, we need to sensitise our children. We have to educate school children to curtail the use of single-use plastic in their daily lives. They should be taught to segregate plastic waste, and then storing it in a separate bin and send it to the waste collection centre. We have also appealed to industry people not to make plastic packaging,” he stated.

READ | PM Modi sets the target of 2022 to free India from single-use plastic

PM Modi sets 2022 deadline

While addressing a gathering at the Sabarmati Riverfront in Ahmedabad on Thursday, PM Modi said that India has to achieve the goal of becoming single-use plastic-free by the year 2022. He said, “Sanitation, environment protection, and life protection, these three subjects were dear to Gandhi Ji. Plastic is a major threat to all three. Therefore, we have to achieve the goal of freeing the country from single-use plastic by the year 2022.”

READ | J&K Guv takes part in plastic waste collection drive in Srinagar

(With Inputs from ANI)