{"id":315227,"date":"2019-09-25T04:25:53","date_gmt":"2019-09-25T04:25:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/?p=315227"},"modified":"2019-09-25T04:25:53","modified_gmt":"2019-09-25T04:25:53","slug":"everyone-should-take-responsibility-to-make-india-free-of-single-use-plastic-dr-harsh-vardhan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/everyone-should-take-responsibility-to-make-india-free-of-single-use-plastic-dr-harsh-vardhan\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Everyone should take responsibility to make India free of single use plastic\u2019: Dr Harsh Vardhan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-315228 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/hrash-vardhan.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"775\" height=\"428\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2019\/09\/hrash-vardhan.jpg 775w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2019\/09\/hrash-vardhan-300x166.jpg 300w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2019\/09\/hrash-vardhan-768x424.jpg 768w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2019\/09\/hrash-vardhan-696x385.jpg 696w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2019\/09\/hrash-vardhan-761x420.jpg 761w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 775px) 100vw, 775px\" \/>Union Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Tuesday said, \u201cWe have to take this movement to every village and to every child and ensure that India becomes free of single use plastic.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">He made the statement at an event organized by FSSAI as a part of \u2018Swachhata Hi Seva 2019\u2019 at Prayas Children\u2019s Home in Jahangirpuri, New Delhi.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Union Health Minister further stated that if everybody takes the responsibility then this could be achieved.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">At the event, 22 of the top food companies including multinational companies committed themselves to effectively managing plastic waste in their operations and to reduce their plastic footprint in the coming years. They also signed a pledge to re-affirm their commitment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Citing the example of polio to highlight multi-stakeholder approach, Dr Harsh Vardhan stated \u201cAll of us have to take up this responsibility in our own capacities. I believe that together we will be able to develop new approaches to combat challenges to both health and the society,\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Highlighting the critical importance of a Jan Andolan on issues around food safety, Dr Harsh Vardhan reminded the participants about \u2018Green Good Deeds\u2019 and said that \u2018Green Good Deeds\u2019 are small positive actions to be performed by individuals or organisations to strengthen the cause of environmental protection. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">\u201cWe have drawn up a list of over 700 Green Good Deeds and asked people to alter their behaviour to Green Good Behaviour to fulfil their Green Social Responsibility. These small, positive actions which include shunning the use of single-use plastic, to be performed by individuals or organisations will strengthen the cause of environmental protection\u201d, he stated.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">He also mentioned that we all should do our own bit as responsible citizens of the society and it is our duty to gift the future generations a cleaner and greener environment. In addition, he also mentioned that we must continue to work in this direction and only stop when each household is plastic waste free and help achieve the Prime Minister\u2019s vision of a\u00a0Naya Bharat\u00a0(New India).<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Dr Harsh Vardhan, who is also the Minister for Science &amp; Technology, stated that scientists at the Indian Institute of Petroleum, Dehradun have used technology to successfully convert one tonne of plastic waste into 800 litres of diesel every day.\u00a0 Such initiatives shall have multi-fold benefits, with reducing the plastic waste in the country, while also making it worthwhile and financially viable for the ragpickers to collect plastic waste which can be converted into fuel.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The event organized at Prayas Children&#8217;s Home and Skilling-Livelihood Centre, Jahangirpuri in North-East Delhi aims to give a big push to the move on plastic waste free India with support of various stakeholders including policy makers, food and beverage sector, industry associations, celebrities and consumer organizations. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Union Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Tuesday said, \u201cWe have to take this movement to every village and to every child and ensure that India becomes free of single use plastic.\u201d He made the statement at an event organized by FSSAI as a part of \u2018Swachhata Hi Seva 2019\u2019 at Prayas Children\u2019s Home in Jahangirpuri, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":315228,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1961,2009,2014],"tags":[5222,9543],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315227"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315227"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":315229,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315227\/revisions\/315229"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/315228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}