Thiruvananthapuram: The brand audit which Green Army conducted in schools of Thiruvananthapuram has inspired an international brand audit. Ahead of the World Environment Day on June 5, an audit of brands which produce maximum plastic waste is being conducted in Philippines and Indonesia, in addition to various Indian cities like Chennai, Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata, Mumbai, and Pune. The audit will also be conducted in Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Alappuzha and Kannur, as well as various cities in Goa and 12 Himalayan states.
Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) and Break Free from Plastic finalised the methodology and will be consolidating the data collected by various local environment groups in each city. In Kerala the brand audit, undertaken by Green Army, analyses household waste produced over a month. In Thiruvananthapuram alone, 60 households from various economic strata are participating in the survey.
In cities outside Kerala, the participant organisations have been auditing waste in dump sites. “The cities of Thiruvananthapuram and Alappuzha have a system in place which ensures segregation. They collect at least 50 per cent of the plastic waste from households. The next step now is ensuring Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) linkages. That’s why our strategy has been to audit household waste. However, outside Kerala, segregation itself is not happening. So they have chosen to understand which brands are the biggest waste producers, especially the small size multilayer packages like sachets. This can help create a global pressure on the giant FMCG brands to reduce plastic waste,” says Nikhilesh Paliath of Thanal, an NGO which partners with GAIA.
