Plastic waste clean bowled at Bangalore's Chinnaswamy Stadium

The resuable pouch for waste generated during IPL matches

Hours before RCB's final game of this season's IPL got underway at the Chinnaswamy Stadium on Saturday night, a number of volunteers overseen by officials of the International Institute of Waste Management (IIWM), a non-profit organization that is supported by a European Union-Resource Efficiency Initiative, went about attaching specially designed pouches to the back of as many as 2000 seats in the lowest priced seats at the venue.

Each of these pouches had a message for the paying public that said in bold, 'Pocket your waste here'. The reusable pouches, all stitched by women from the economically weaker sections of Bangalore, have two compartments, one to place the RCB flag in at the end of the game, so that it doesn't get wasted and become part of the litter, and other for the waste generated during the game, be it food remnants or packets.

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Aptly named, 'Plastic waste clean bowled' and supported by RCB and Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA), this wasn't the first time this was being tried. Right from the opening match here on March 28, various experiments have been tried out, with varying success but always of great learning value, to reduce the waste produced during a match as also to ensure the best collection practices of the wasted that is generated.

During one of the earlier matches with pouches being attached to just 500 seats, as much as 42.5 kgs of waste, 50 kgs of flags were collected. When extrapolated, just the weight of the litter in the entire stadium due to each match is around 1.6 tonnes out of around 4.5 tonnes of total waste generated.

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"Excited fans neither listen to the cleaning staff nor move towards dustbins to throw their waste. After a lot of experiments, we found out that keeping a pouch behind every seat is the best way to ensure that neither these flags nor other 'cheer' items are thrown away," said the executive director of IIWM P Bineesha.

Public awareness was low at the stage but after continuous effort that changed. In another experiment, to avoid single use of disposables such as paper cups that are provided at water stations, steel cups have been tied with chains. This led to a 20 per cent reduction in waste.

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