New Delhi: Doing its bit towards environmental conservation AAI has banned single-use plastic from all the airports being operated by AAI. As part of its commitment towards Corporate Social Responsibility, various steps have been undertaken to eliminate the single-use plastic items at passenger terminals and city side. These steps include the banning of single-use plastic items like straws, plastic cutleries, plastic plates etc. This means passengers will not get to avail or use these items at airports. On the basis of a third party survey conducted by Quality Council of India 16 of AAI's airports have been declared as Single-Use Plastic Free. These airports are- Indore, Bhopal, Ahmedabad, Bhubaneswar, Tirupati, Trichy, Vijayawada, Dehradun, Chandigarh, Vadodara, Madurai, Raipur, Vizag, Pune, Kolkata, and Varanasi.
In a bid to improve the waste management system AAI is promoting the use of eco-friendly sustainable alternatives progressively like the use of bio-degradable garbage bags in the garbage bins and installation of plastic bottle crushing machine at airports. No movement is successful until it becomes a people's movement, taking a cue from it AAI airports have also started various awareness campaigns for sensitizing passengers towards the cause and to drive engagement and cooperation from all of them.
In its quest for making environmental conservation an ingrained organisational mission, Airports Authority of India has formulated an Environment Policy which envisages its commitment for reduction of Green House Gases (GHG) and sustainable development by implementing cost-effective carbon mitigation action to conserve environment and reduce adverse impact on society, community and ecosystem thus contributing to national sustainable development goals.
In order to ensure successful implementation of the plan, AAI has engaged Quality Council of India to audit the implementation of the ban of single-use plastic items at 34 airports handling one million passengers per annum which will be completed by January 31, 2019.