Plastic Trash Builds Roads in India With the First-Ever 'Garbage Cafe’ Everyone Should See

"Do not waste food" is something we hear every day, but have you ever heard of "free food from waste?"

After the news on New Delhi's burgeoning environmental problems, efforts have been boosted to curtail the general greenhouse emissions in India. In fact, as one of the efforts, people started seeking options to somehow help, and one of the main solutions they found seems quite novel if only it works.

Just recently, India launched its very first "garbage café" in Ambikapur, a city in the state of Chhattisgarh. This attraction-type initiative may be uncommon, but it was pioneered by the Municipal Corporation and is believed to be a way to save the country and the planet as well. The idea is to provide food to the poor and the homeless, in exchange for recyclable garbage or waste.

This is the authorities' contribution to the efforts to fight climate change, which is gaining traction in the global scene, while also keeping the city clean. The initiative is set to collect plastic waste, which was the term used to refer to the plasticized food wraps, utensils, and utility bags that will be collected by the café. In exchange, the café intends to give either a free meal for every person for every kilo of trash collected or a solid breakfast for 500 grams turned over.

Though plastic has proven to be convenient for everyone to use, the human addiction to single-use plastic and the increasing prevalence of the environmental consequences of it. Around the world, not only in India, people throw away million of plastic drinking bottles every minute, and up to 5 trillion single-use plastic bags. Plastic waste is now so prevalent that some scientists even suggested this could now serve as a geological indicator of the Anthropocene era.

Plastic commonly is recycled and converted into daily-use products and many other commodities like batteries, containers, fleece jackets and also mixed with tar or bitumen for building roads. It is the first of its kind in India, but such cafés are also already in operation elsewhere. Some can even be found in the US, Europe, and even in Cambodia.

The Garbage café collects the plastic waste to build sturdy roads in Ambikapur, the second cleanest city after Indore.

As per the reports, Ambikapur has already built one out of 8 lakh plastic bags and asphalt, a very profound way to use the toxic plastic into something productive, these roads last longer than the tarred or rubberized forms. Such roads are very much resistant to water-impelled damages.

With the cities currently already sunk in toxic trash, it is forecasted to be unlivable in the near future, hence such initiatives placed to control the damages caused to society and the environment.

On 15th July, while presenting the budget, Ajay Trikey, the city mayor sanctioned Rs 5 Lakh for the café to be operated away from the main city bus stand. It is also expected that the scheme eventually expands to provide free shelter to these homeless, carrying out this exchange activity.