Chennai: Tamil Nadu's decision to ban certain plastic materials has taken off on a positive note, with shops and establishments stopping the distribution of plastic covers, cups and plates among other things. However, the awareness to the full extent is yet to go deep into the society, despite efforts to collect banned plastics from households and shops.

The implementation could be visible in many shops, where people are switching over to alternatives starting from cloth bags, newspapers and banana leaves.

Two days after the Madras high court called the ban on single-use plastics, the Chennai Corporation has seized almost 12.50 metric tonnes of the banned item from across the city. These items were taken after the corporation officials carried out a surprise check in different locations in Tamil Nadu.

However, the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) had requested people to gather the single-use plastic items at their respective ward offices before December 31, 2018. Through this, around two metric tonnes of banned plastic pieces were brought to the ward offices across the city.

According to a GCC statement, Teynampet zone collected 580 kg of banned plastic items followed by Anna Nagar zone with 485 kg of plastic pieces.

About 2,376 kg of single-use plastic was seized from Valasaravakkam, and about 761 kg was seized from Anna Nagar on January 2. The total quantity of banned plastic pieces seized on January 2 stood at 8.35 tonnes, the GCC statement said.

The government of Tamil Nadu banned the use of plastics on June 5, 2018, on the World Environment Day. The ban came on the recommendation made by a Select House Committee, which was given the task of analysing the effect of such ban by former chief minister J Jayalalithaa.

The banned single-use plastic is food processing and packing plastic used in hotels, plastic sheets used for table mats and tablecloths, thermocol plates used for serving food, plastic coated paper plates, plastic bags used for gifting during special occasions, plastic coated tumblers used in state-run liquor shops, small vendors, serving coffee, tea, water on occasions, plastic carry bags used for everyday use by people and plastic printed flags for sale in shops.