KarunaNews Story

Every day, hungry people arrive at this cafe in Ambikapur, a city in the state of Chhattisgarh in central India, in the hope of getting a hot meal. But they don't pay for their food with money – instead, they hand over bundles of plastic such as old carrier bags, food wrappers and water bottles. People can trade a kilogram (2.2lb) of plastic waste for a full meal that includes rice, two vegetable curries, dal, roti, salad and pickles, says Vinod Kumar Patel, who runs the cafe on behalf of the Ambikapur Municipal Corporation (AMC), the public body which manages the city's infrastructure and services. "For half a kilogram of plastic, they get breakfast like samosas or vada pav." Ambikapur has tried to use the scourge of plastic pollution to address hunger. "The idea for the need to tackle two existing problems in Ambikapur: plastic waste and hunger," Patel says. The idea was simple: to encourage low-income people, especially the homeless and ragpickers (those who collect rags and waste for a living), to collect plastic waste from streets and landfills, and give them hot meals in return. It is making a difference in people’s lives and in the amount of plastic waste going to a landfill.