Ambikapur’s Garbage Café has found a way to make discarded waste valuable in the most meaningful way! Tanzia Haq reports on how the city has introduced a model that is being replicated throughout the nation.
The Garbage Café in India has an interesting business model: for every kilo of garbage, you get a hot, filling meal. The café opened in October in Ambikapur in the state of Chattisgarh in India and is helping to remove plastic waste from the streets and giving meals to anyone who comes providing. Be it one of the many children who earn a living by collecting plastic waste on the streets, or even students and other customers.
The café was an initiative by the municipal corporation of Ambikapur. When the café was inaugurated, the health minister of Chattisgarh declared the café open for everyone, bringing half a kilo of plastic waste along himself.
India is one of the many countries struggling with a plastic waste disposal problem, generating approximately 25,000 tonnes of plastic waste daily, as estimated by environment ministry of India. Initiatives like the café are one of the few reportedly successful ways this garbage is being collected for proper disposal by local authorities.
Ajay Tirkey, mayor of Ambikapur, notes the café’s fast popularity saying: “One day a whole family came in with huge sacks weighing seven kilos”.
India is slowly starting to take initiative regarding single-use plastic since October 2019, when prime minister Narendra Modi announced that India would phase out single-use plastic consumption by 2022 on Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birthday.
Ambikapur is one of the few cities in India producing tangible results in proper waste collection and management. It was ranked the second cleanest city by the Indian government’s census this year. The city also sells a huge portion of the collected plastic and paper waste to private companies, making about $16000 a month.
The café’s food for plastic model is being replicated in other parts of India as well. Authorities in the capital of New Delhi are planning to open several cafés. A school in Siliguri, West Bengal, has begun distributing food over the weekend to people who bringing in a half kilo of plastic trash. In Mulugu in central-south India, town authorities are handing out a kilo of rice in exchange for a kilo of plastic.
Tirkey is proud of the initiative not only because it’s creating incentive to collect plastic waste, but also because of the nutritious meal being provided to those who are doing the service. “What’s important is that our meals are nutritious and tasty. We didn’t want to give rubbish,” said Tirkey.
