Food for plastic: A unique move to rid St Martin’s of plastic pollution

Plastic wastes are no longer considered useless on Saint Martin's island. Thanks to a unique initiative of the Bidyanondo Foundation, plastic wastes have become as valuable as banknotes for the islanders.

Bidyanondo Exchange Center in Saint Martin's has come up with a special offer, under which food items including rice, lentils, egg, even T-shirt, lungi, sandal will be provided in exchange for plastic waste materials.

"It is not possible to collect all the plastic wastes of Saint Martin's with just 10-20 volunteers. Therefore, we came up with a unique plan to involve everyone living on the island," Salman Khan Yeasin, manager, Image and Communication, Bidyanondo Foundation, told The Business Standard.

"We want to spread the initiative all over Bangladesh," he added. 

The eccentric food for the plastic initiative started from Tuesday when people put plastic wastes on one side of a scale and weighed daily necessities rice, pulses and oil on the other to take them home in exchange for plastic.

From now on, Bidyanondo will hold the exchange initiative once a month and the St Martin locals will be able to buy rice, pulses, eggs, biscuits, shoes, life jackets and other products as needed.

"We want to free our tourist centres from plastic pollution. It is not possible with the volunteers alone. That is why we want to involve common people. As a result of this, our tourist spot will be clean and the poor will get daily necessities," said Salman Khan Yeasin.

"We are getting very good responses from common people. People are collecting and depositing plastic wastes," he added.

Bidyanondo has set up a temporary Plastic Exchange Centre where people will store their plastic waste every month and on a specified day next month they will take their preferred products in exchange.

In the run up to launching the initiative, Bidyanondo volunteers have gone door to door to inform people about their campaign. Locals are all praise about this unique idea.

Bidyanondo collected about 6 tonnes of plastic on Wednesday. This waste will be taken to Cox's Bazar and will be used to make a sculpture at the Kalatali Beach. It will be named a 'Giant' to remind people that throwing plastic will come back to them in the form of a monster.

Vidyananda launched this event a month ago to reduce plastic pollution. For the past one month, every Friday and Saturday, tourists at the Cox's Bazar beach have been receiving gifts by depositing various plastic wastes including plastic bottles, packets of chips to Bidyanondo volunteers.

After St Martin, Vidyananda has plans to tackle plastic pollution in other tourist destinations.

Bidyanondo Foundation, a non-profit social welfare organisation, was founded in 2013. It has been working on changing lifestyles of the groups left behind and providing basic needs and hygiene materials to them.