Go Green Expo a hit in Thiruvananthapuram

Thiruvananthapuram: Most cloth bag manufacturers at ‘Go Green Expo’ are hopeful that it would not wind up on Tuesday, originally decided to be the last day of the exhibition. They have received a lot of orders, especially after the city corporation’s plastic ban came into effect on March 1. However, the corporation officials said that since Attukal Pongala is coming up, extending the Expo could prove to be a bad decision. “Some of the bag manufacturers have come from places outside Thiruvananthapuram. A gap during Attukal Pongala will not be beneficial for them,” the official said.

Instead, the Corporation is thinking of opening cloth and paper bag selling counters across the city, to meet demands from the city’s shops. The number of shops which have lined up at the Expo with orders had crossed 200 by Monday. This may be small, as there are lakhs of shops in Thiruvananthapuram yet to turn towards the alternatives to plastic carry bags. But the stall managers are happy that their business has picked up. At the stall run by Pioneer, a ‘Zero-Waste’ Centre headed by women, there was just one member. The rest were busy making bags, as they had received orders from 15 places, according to Suma S., the only person in the stall. The number of orders ranged from five to 20 at each stall.

Even as the hope for a change in attitude among the people and shopkeepers of Thiruvananthapuram run abound, there was another narrative. “A person who bought our cloth bag came complaining. He said that one customer refused to buy the groceries he had picked, as he did not want to spend on the bag,” says Bindu T., a stall manager. A corporation official pointed out that though the prices are slightly higher than plastic bags, these can be reused much more than plastic bags.