Have you switched over to the Manjappai?
If yellow cloth bags are becoming integral to households across Chennai, a fair share of the credit must go to the Manjappai campaign by the Tamil Nadu State Government. Launched in 2021, the campaign seeking to encourage people to return to using eco-friendly cloth bags has only picked up momentum thanks to Manjappai-vending machines installed at strategic locations, awareness drives and branding initiatives.
According to Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board, 31 Meendum Manjappai vending machines have been installed across Chennai and many more are on the way.
The Manjappai vending machine installed at a TNPCB sustainability station on the sands of the Besant Nagar beach is the first to come up on the landscape. According to TNPCB sources, the initiative continues to enjoy impressive patronage, the machine staying busy.
The Meendu Manjappai app is another branding initiative that informs users about the location of the vending machines and the number of bags dispensed by it. It also allows users to complain about manufacturers that are stocking up on or distributing single-use plastic products.
Koyambedu wholesale market is covered by five vending machines. Sathish R, a staff with the Market Management Committee, says the bags are a hit among shoppers but there is scope for improvement.
“Currently, the machine dispenses only bags of one size, which can roughly carry two kilos of weight. Those shopping at the fruit and vegetable market return with a heavier load and if the bag could be customised then it could bring in more benefits,” he says.
Recently, the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board conducted a campaign on International Plastic Bag Free Day where hundreds of bags were distributed to shoppers and shops. “Supplying shops with manjappai and slashing its rate to ₹5 (currently the bag is sold at ₹ 10) would make the cloth bags even more popular because many shops continue to stock up on shopping bags of other materials as well,” says Sathish.
Citizen Consumer and Civic Action Group (CAG) is coming out with a study covering eight districts of Tamil Nadu to understand the effectiveness of the Meendum Manjappai campaign.
‘Sanitary napkin vending machines at Metro stations suffer from rough handing by users’
Back in 2021, in coordination with Rotary Club of Madras and Geo India Foundation, Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL) installed sanitary napkin vending machines at 39 Metro rail stations across the city. Though these machines continue to dispense sanitary pads, they have been stretched to their limits on account of vandalism and poor user behaviour. The need for continual repairs has taken a toll of the resources of the NGO maintaining these machines.
Minister for Industries M.C Sampath along with CMRL officials during the inauguration of sanitary napkin vending machines at Koyambedu metro station in February 2021 | Photo Credit: VEDHAN M
“Currently, machines from 16 metro stations have been brought to us for repairs,” says Priya Jemima, founder, Geo India Foundation.
While in some stations, the keys to the machines are missing, in many others, the locks are broken.
How does the machine works? The user collects a free token from the ticket counter to drop it in a slot on the machine and collect the sanitary pad. The NGO supplies the sanitary pads either at the Alandur or Koyambedu metro station for refilling. As this is a manually-operated machine, the NGO was expecting to service them once in six months, but to their shock, complaints started flooding in from the first month itself.
“Our MoU with CMRL has ended but they have requested us to continue and have even promised us that they will work out an arrangement when the next phase of the Metro line is opened”
“The respective station master is in charge of the key but at least in six stations they have lost the keys without which the napkins cannot be refilled,” says Priya.
The NGO has also observed that the machines installed at Alandur, Teynampet and Airport metro stations are a source of frequent complaints.
The NGO had asked CMRL if they could charge a small fee from the public but the idea was shot down.
“Our MoU with CMRL has ended but they have requested us to continue and have even promised us that they will work out an arrangement when the next phase of the Metro line is opened,” says Priya, adding that the least they could do was create awareness among housekeeping staff who could help curious users about using the machine. The machine is dispensing sanitary napkins three times more than it is normally expected to.
“When we started 1000 napkins was sufficient for each station. Now, it is 5,000 a month which is a huge cost on us,” she says.
The chequered life story of a reverse vending machine
For four years, this reverse vending machine at Puratchi Thalaivar Dr. MGR Bus Terminus in Koyambedu was playing its role to the hilt. The user would drop a used PET bottle, get a reward in exchange and leave wreathed in smiles. If the reverse vending machine had the power of thinking and feeling, it would have clinked with delight. And then, it fell on bad days.
During the inauguration
Hors de combat, the machine was lying in the office of Industrial Waste Management Association (IWMA) for long, and during that time, it was reminiscing about the happy days.
IWMA had sponsored the machine and was maintaining it, and when in disrepair, it was packed off to the IWMA office.
“The machine is in working order now and waiting for a new public space,” says K. Baskaran, chairman, IWMA.
Chennai Central station and the Tambaram railway terminus are two places the Association was keen on taking this social project to, but delay in permissions remains a roadblock to this objective being met.
IWMA had spent a few lakhs of rupees to install this machine but the pandemic cast a shadow over the initiative. “In the initial years, the machine was collecting close to 150 kilos of plastics a day, which was taken by a vendor to be recycled into various products including t-shirts,” says Baskaran, adding that gift coupons of ₹ 5 and ₹10 were dispensed by the machine which could be redeemed at certain stores close to the terminus.
However, the initiative lost momentum as people started dropping other waste and the quantity of plastic collected plummeted to a single digit number. He says: “All that we want is a space that is easily accessible to the public with electricity connection. We will pay for the power bill and hire a person to maintain the machine as well.”
Get compost from GCC’s division offices
Does Greater Chennai Corporation still sell compost? Yes, it does, but not on the same scale that it had achieved sometime ago. In 2022, Corporation staff from various divisions were aggressively marketing the compost it produces locally from garden and vegetable waste. These were sold by putting up temporary stalls at malls, parks, beaches and busy roads. A conservancy inspector with Division 125 says public can buy compost from any division office during office hours. A kilo is priced at ₹10.
