38,000 Kg plastic collected, District Collector’s rice-for-plastic idea a hit!

“C Narayan Reddy is on a mission to turn Mulugu plastic free. And the way he is innovating, his district might just become the pilot for the whole country"

C Narayana Reddy was appointed the district collector of Mulugu, Telangana in March this year, fairly recent. But it seems our officers don’t take as long as some of our politicians to get into action. On October 16th, he launched an out-of-the-box scheme to tackle the ever growing plastic waste problem of the city, a problem that’s shared by the entire country. The administration announced a lucrative barter scheme where 1 KG rice was given away in exchange of 1 KG plastic.

The first of its kind scheme ran for 10 days and in the course managed to lift about 38, 000 Kg plastic off the roads of Mulugu. And that’s a lot of plastic! The innovative idea has been so successful that if you see somebody fighting over a waste plastic bottle on the street in days to come, credit it to the Mulugu effect.

C Narayan Reddy is on a mission to turn Mulugu plastic free. And the way he is innovating, his district might just become the pilot for the whole country. Who would have thought there could be such a simple solution to such a big problem?

The scheme has largely been successful due to active participation from locals and generous donations from NRIs. And this has to be the model for tackling some of the most pervasive problems in India –a solid people-government partnership.