Taking another step towards saving the environment, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation today announced a contest for encouraging creative use of plastic bottles instead of being thrown away and increasing environmental hazards, on the occasion of World Environment Day, 5 June.

The contest opened today and will continue till 16 June, has been named as ‘Plastic Bottle Crafts Challenge’ wherein participants can come out with creative ideas of using the single-use plastic bottles like utilizing them as plant pots. The participants would have to take a picture and share it on the Facebook event page – KMC Plastic Bottle Crafts Challenge.’

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The participants would then have to tag three friends and challenge them to make their own craft and share their own entries on the event page. A QR code has also been provided by the civic body, which can be scanned to participate in the contest.

According to membermayor-in-council for IT and education Sandipan Saha, the top 10 entries will get the opportunity to present their craft to the mayor. According to the mayor, the bottles can be well-utilised for decorating Metro and other pillars with greenery which otherwise is a costly affair.

Agreeing that single-use plastic bags are easily available in the city markets and passing the onus of controlling it on the state pollution control board, the mayor said, “The Pollution Control Board should have to cut off the line of the manufacturing units where they are being produced.

Huge stocks of such plastic from Nepal are smuggled and are available. Burrabazar and Bagri Market should be raided by the PCB.” The mayor underscored that instead of catching each and every shop in the market, it should be controlled from the source.