January 2020 After 15 years and 640 tonnes of plastic recycled, GreenLife Society in Andaman and Nicobar Islands is going out of business and closing down its recycling plant. Ashraf Hanif Managing Director of GreenLife Industries informed the GreenLife Society board “we do not have enough plastics to make a viable business and we cannot carry on making losses”. In normal terms a business not being able to find raw materials would be a disaster to make its business viable. In our opinion its an achievement we rarely ever see.
The reason this came about is because of 15 years of hard campaigning and getting the government to act and make laws regarding the use of plastics.
If you go to Andaman Islands in 2020 you will not see one plastic bag been given to you by a shop keeper it is now illegal. Pet bottles which was our biggest source of plastic to our recycling plant has also been banned, you will only see 2 litre water bottles and Coke and Pepsi are only in tins now. This new instigation is due to our awareness in the islands and the Prime Ministers Swachh Bharat campaign coming together at the right time to defeat this relentless pollution.
Hasmukh Hoslo Jiwa Executive Director explained “GreenLife Society Andaman and Nicobar Islands basic idea was to make this an issue it is not an NGOs work to clean up the waste on islands. I started this in 2005 it was to create an embarrassment to the Port Blair Municipality to show that recycling plastics can be done if they organise themselves. We had never any intentions to continue this work forever. Finally we see they have got the message after a lot of screaming and shouting we are all on the same page I hope our project shows a future for other island communities and countries around the globe:”
The remaining plastics is collected by the municipality and small recycling stations.
We would like to thank the Finnish Embassy for realising this project and initially financing this project after the Tsunami and thank individuals who came along and gave their time and energy in raising funds and awareness.
