South Railways installs Plastic crusher machines

Mumbai, June 28: In order to protect the environment, South Central Railways has installed machines for crushing and recycling plastic bottles at select stations in Hyderabad.

The installations have been made at Kachiguda, Secunderabad and Nizamabad stations along with Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh.

These crusher machines are of the size of a refrigerator and have the capacity to crush around 5000 bottles per day.

The crushed bottles come out as fine plastic pieces, ready to be sold as scrap in the market or to be reused to make bags and T-shirts.

"The aim to install these machines is to protect the environment. If any passenger wants to throw the plastic water bottle they can put into this machine, which will crush the water bottle," Chief Public Relations Officer of South Central Railways, Uma Shankar told media.

Not only are initiatives being taken to prevent littering, but measures are being implemented to discourage the use of plastic itself.

Earlier this month, the Telangana government instructed municipal bodies across the state to stop the usage of plastic.

At Vadodara railway station, the railway authorities have set up bottle crushers wherein the machine offers money in return for plastics.

This unique initiative aims at discouraging people from littering the stations. Passengers earn up to Rs.5 by feeding the machine with a plastic bottle.