Declaration of Uttarakhand Government that Municipal bodies getting plastic free will get reward :

1. Uttarakhand Chief Minister has made a big announcement regarding the cleanliness campaign. He said that the city where the municipal corporation will be plastic free will be honored by the government.

2. In Uttarakhand, the first corporation to be plastic free will be given a reward of one crore rupees. Chief Minister  made the announcement during a program on cleanliness survey. For the first time the plastic free municipality will be given a reward of Rs 75 lakh and Nagar Panchayat Rs 50 lakh.

3. In the cleanliness survey, one crore rupees will be given to the bodies of the state coming in the first 100 in India and triple prize money will be given to the municipal bodies coming in the first three places in the state. Currently, the municipal corporations coming to the first three places get 20 lakh, 15 lakh and 10 lakh rupees respectively but now 60 lakh, 45 lakh and 30 lakh rupees will be given.

4. Municipalities used to get Rs 15 lakh, 10 lakh and seven lakh rupees respectively on attaining the first, second and third positions, which has now been increased to 45 lakh, 30 lakh and 21 lakh rupees. 

5. Similarly, the amount received from the first three places for the Nagar Panchayats has been increased from Rs 10 lakh, eight lakh and Rs five lakh to Rs 30 lakh, 24 and 15 lakh respectively.

6. The Chief Minister honored Roorkee Municipal Corporation, Kashipur Municipal Corporation and Haldwani Municipal Corporation, respectively, who secured the first three places under the cleanliness rankings and gave them prize money. 

7. These three municipal corporations can also send proposals to the government for works related to cleanliness and infrastructure, costing up to one crore, 75 lakh and 50 lakh rupees respectively. CM also honored and rewarded the municipal councils and nagar panchayats at the first three places on the occasion.

Plastic Pollution :

Plastic pollution is the accumulation of plastic objects and particles (e.g.: plastic bottles and much more) in the Earth's environment that adversely affects wildlife, wildlife habitat, and humans. Plastics that act as pollutants are categorized into micro-, meso-, or macro debris, based on size. Plastics are inexpensive and durable, and as a result levels of plastic production by humans are high. However, the chemical structure of most plastics renders them resistant to many natural processes of degradation and as a result they are slow to degrade. Together, these two factors have led to a high prominence of plastic pollution in the environment.

As of 2018, about 380 million tons of plastic is produced worldwide each year. From the 1950s up to 2018, an estimated 6.3 billion tons of plastic has been produced worldwide, of which an estimated 9% has been recycled and another 12% has been incinerated.This large amount of plastic waste enters the environment, with studies suggesting that the bodies of 90% of seabirds contain plastic debris. In some areas there have been significant efforts to reduce the prominence of free range plastic pollution, through reducing plastic consumption, litter cleanup, and promoting plastic recycling.

Some researchers suggest that by 2050 there could be more plastic than fish in the oceans by weight.

In  Independence Day speech on August 15, PM  had urged Indians and government agencies to “take the first big step” on Gandhi Jayanti toward eliminating single-use plastic.