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Two Prong

 Totally loved reading this story - desi ingenuity at it's best, solving not one but two hard problems at once.

The cafe’s concept of bartering food for plastic waste is catching on elsewhere, too. In Siliguri, West Bengal, the alumni of a local school are distributing free food on Saturdays to anyone who deposits half a kilo of plastic waste. At the other end of the country in Mulugu in Telangana state, the town authorities give one kilo of rice in return for one kilo of plastic. Local school children also go around collecting plastic. The district collector of Mulugu has said he wants to make his district the first in India to be free of single use plastic. The enthusiasm is proving infections: one local couple sent out wedding invitations printed on reusable cloth grocery bags.

Some form of bartering waste for useful things has been around in India for a long time. We stored newspapers and magazines away in the shed after they had been read. Every few months those would be bartered for steel utensils. I remember it took a lot of paper to get a large sized item so sometimes my mother would not make the trade until there was enough. Old saris could be turned into quilts. specially if they were made of cotton but it was possible with synthetics too even if not as comfortable. People used them as mats or durries. Looking back, I think I saw far less waste around me than I do now. Throwing something that was not broken or torn beyond redemption was not viewed positively, Whoever was throwing the thing away would be subject to some judgement if not censure. 

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