In October 2019, the Ambikapur municipal corporation opened “The Garbage Café” in Ambikapur, in the state of Chhattisgarh. The café is meant to encourage awareness about the need to collect and remove plastic waste while also giving a meal to those who need it and work for it.
For every kilogram of plastic waste collected, the café offers a hearty meal; every ½ kilogram earns you a substantial breakfast. The Chhattisgarh health minister, TS Singh Deo, attended the launch and brought in half a kilo of plastic himself, emphasizing that the café was for everyone.
Recently, a poor garbage picker named Ram Yadav, who could only fantasize of eating at a café, was sitting at a table about to eat a hot plate of dal, aloo gobi, poppadoms, and rice. He earned the tasty meal in exchange for bringing in one kilo of plastic trash. “The hot meal I get here lasts me all day. And it feels good to sit at a table like everyone else,” Yadav said.
Co-founder of Parvaah, Simar Malhotra, believes that the Garbage Café is worth duplicating across the country. Parvaah is a non-profit in New Delhi which campaigns against plastic.
Malhotra said:
How many schemes solve two problems in one go? The cafe tackles waste and also gives hungry people a hot meal, which in turn motivates them to collect more plastic.
The process of how an individual gets a plate of food in exchange for garbage is simple. Pickers bring in their collected plastic to a waste management center that, in return, gives a coupon to the collector. Then, the collector brings the coupon to the Garbage Café, which is right next to the city’s main bus stop, where the coupon is exchanged for lunch or breakfast. If an individual cannot bring their trash to the waste management center, then they can bring the plastic straight to the café.
Ajay Tirkey, the mayor of the city, said:
It’s become well known fast because it’s located right by the main bus stand in the city. We’re getting about a dozen people coming in every day. One day a whole family came in with huge sacks weighing seven kilos. What’s important is that our meals are nutritious and tasty. We didn’t want to give rubbish.
The city makes about $17,000 each month by selling recycled plastic granules and recycled paper to private companies. However, the city doesn’t only sell recycled plastic, it also uses it to improve infrastructure. For example, in 2015, the city constructed a nearly one-mile long road made almost entirely out of plastic granules. The road is so strong that it even survived through the monsoon season. The city plans to use all of the collected trash from the Garbage Café to construct roads.
Ambikapur has attacked the pollution crisis in India by investing in significant cleanups, which resulted in them jumping up 15 spots in the rankings, becoming India’s second cleanest city for 2019. Indore in central India ranked the cleanest.
Meanwhile, on the 150th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi’s birth, the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, announced that by 2022 India would phase out single-use plastic. Currently, the country produces nearly 25,000 tons of plastic waste every day, of which only about 14,000 tons gets collected. India has very few effective waste-management systems to separate plastic from general waste. However, Ambikapur is one of the few cities that are leaders in a waste-free future, with 100% door-to-door waste collection and segregation.
“More the waste, better the taste!” – The Garbage Café
The city plans to expand the operation into providing shelter to the homeless in exchange for collecting trash. These operations are significant for fighting the waste crisis. About 70% of plastic waste in India’s capital, New Delhi, is from single-use items. Most of the time, it winds up in landfills or clogging up drains. It’s very dangerous for hungry cows who raid trash bins and eat the plastic. In 2018, a veterinarian in New Delhi removed more than 150 pounds of plastic from a cow’s stomach.
Municipal authorities aim to open several Garbage Cafés in New Delhi. The cafe’s concept is catching on around India and hopefully, it will catch on around the world too. In Siliguri, West Bengal, a local school is giving out free food on Saturdays to individuals who bring in half a kilo of plastic trash. On the other side of the country in Telangana state, Mulugu town authorities are giving one kilo of rice in exchange for one kilo of plastic waste. Also, as part of a request from the schools, local school kids are sent out to collect plastic. Mulugu’s district collector aims to make his district the first in India to be 100% free of single-use plastics.
