When people went to K. R. Market on Tuesday, they returned with things more than vegetables, fruits or flowers. They came out with a change from their routine of having plastic bags to carrying cloth bags. As part of the Cheela Mela organised by Sahas (a city-based NGO), in association with the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), the visitors to K.R. Market were distributed cloth bags for free which were made by self-help groups (SHG).
Enforcement of ban on single-use plastic (SUP) started from July 1. However, there is little awareness of the ban. K.R. Market being one of the biggest markets in Bengaluru, it alone uses large quantities of plastic bags.
The mela sought to encourage market patrons to use cloth bags. The SHG had invited people to bring their old garments which they repurposed into cloth bags on the spot and asked them to henceforth these bags for shopping. "At the market, we provided around 2,500 cloth bags reaching out to almost 3,000 people in a day," said Veerendra S.V., Project Manager at Sahas.
