In an effort to introduce more environment-friendly initiatives, the Indian Railways has started installing plastic bottle crushers at railway stations to minimize waste generated. To promote the same, it has announced that those who enter their phone number after dropping a bottle will get a cashback of Rs 5 on their PayTM wallet.

The announcement was made after the installation of bottle crushers in Vadodara, Bhopal, and Bengaluru's- KSR, Yeshwantpur, Cantonment and Krishnarajapuram stations this week. They had been installed in Mysore, Ahmedabad, Pune, and Mumbai earlier.

Based on the response, the railway department will install more. These automatic noiseless machines cost Rs 4.5 lakh each.

Eco-friendly food packaging

The Indian Railway also launched bagasse-based food packaging for serving breakfast and meals in eight premium trains (Shatabdi and Rajdhani) that run from Delhi on the occasion of World Environment Day.

Baggase, a by-product of sugarcane after extracting its juice will act as an alternative to petroleum-based Styrofoam and plastic products used earlier. The department aims to bring these in all Rajdhani, Duronto and Shatabdi trains in the coming months.

Ticket-less travel no more

Additionally, it has also been taking initiatives to see to it that rules are strictly followed by passengers. After saying that it will impose six times the penalty on excess baggage, it has decided to go after ticketless travelers from June 8 to 22. It will penalize travellers travelling without valid tickets during the drive and a report on the same will be submitted by all the railway zones.