The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has banned use of single-use plastic items at 16 of its airports across the country. This means air travellers will not get any single-use plastic items like straws, plastic cutlery and plastic plates etc at passenger terminals and city side.
The 16 airports declared as single-use plastic free are: Indore, Bhopal, Ahmedabad, Bhubaneswar, Tirupati, Trichy, Vijayawada, Dehradun, Chandigarh, Vadodara, Madurai, Raipur, Vizag, Pune, Kolkata and Varanasi.
AAI has also engaged Quality Council of India to assess/check the implementation of the ban of single-use plastic items at 34 airports handling 10 lakh passengers per annum which will be completed by January 31, 2019.
The first batch of 16 airports was selected on the basis of third-party assessment carried out by Quality Council of India.
AAI is also enhancing its waste management systems and is promoting the use of eco-friendly sustainable alternatives progressively like use of bio-degradable garbage bags in garbage bins and installation of plastic bottle crushing machine at airports.
The authority has formulated an environment policy to reduce green house gases (GHG) and sustainable development by implementing cost effective carbon mitigation action.
Reference- TOI, AAI PR