Green Piece

It was on October 2,2008 that the Chandigarh Administration imposed a total ban on the use and sale of polythene bags in the city. The notification was issued by the Department of Environment under Section 5 of the Environment (Protection) Act ‘86. Switching over to other eco-friendly alternatives was a tough call,simply because there were hardly any options available. Only a handful of stores like Fab India,Suvasa,Anokhi,offered paper and cloth bags.

“We had to suddenly cull out old,jute bags for shopping,as most department stores charged as much as Rs 20 for a fragile and non-bio-degradable cloth bag. Over the years,the prices have come down,with most stores offering bags for free,as mass production has got the prices down to as low as Rs 2 each,’’ notes Sangeeta Vardhan an educationist and designer,who runs Vatsal Chaya,an NGO for underprivileged children. Reusing scraps of cloth,Vardhan designed bags in varied sizes and got the girls from Vatsal Chaya to block-print them. “Some boutiques came forward to give us extra cloth,and we started making theme-based bags around festivals or special occassions in the range of Rs 30 to Rs 50,’’ shares Vardhan. “Inspired by Furoshiki,the Japanese concept we use beads,laces,gota on the edges given to us every month by Babe Di Hatti,the craft shop to dress it all up,’’ says the lady,who is now working on lattice bags woven with ribbons.

NGO Samarpan uses cotton cloth woven in the jails of Punjab and Haryana to produce smart cloth bags with their logo. The bags are block-printed by girls who need employment and are priced at Rs 50 each. “We are approaching designers across India to buy these; we even did a test-run at the Vanity Fair lifestyle exhibition and Dilli Haat in Delhi,’’ says a representative of Samarpan.

Sturdy paper bags for bread are the forte of Monica’s,one of the first bakeries in the city to offer this. Nick Bakers followed suit. While Sohni Makkar,who runs a designer studio in Sector 8 said no to plastic way before it was banned. Her cloth bags remain a big hit even today,“Now so many NRIs take extra cloth bags for packing,” says Makkar.

“I think the ban has given a new life in the dying small-scale industry of paper bags and jute bags,’’ she says. Vardhan agrees that with the change in the mindsets,bigger companies like Hidesign,Westside,Archies have also contributed in taking the ‘Say No to Plastic Bags’ message across.