Imagine this — you walk into a cafe and can buy anything you want without money. In exchange for food, all you need to pay is plastic!
Prakrutik Plastic Cafe in Gujarat’s Junagadh was opened in June 2022 in line with the Centre’s ban on single-use plastic.
City collector Rachit Raj started this cafe to promote awareness about the harms of plastic and reduce plastic waste in the city.
“The whole agenda of starting the cafe is to promote natural living and discourage plastic usage. The waste which is collected is in turn sent for recycling,” he says.
The cafe collects plastic waste from its customers and then sends it to recycling.
Rachit also wanted to promote natural living, which is why the cafe only serves food made out of vegetables and fruits that are grown using natural farming methods.
“People consuming chemical-infused food is becoming a huge concern. So, I also wanted to promote natural farming in Junagadh. That’s when I thought of serving natural food in the cafe,” he says.
Taking the ideology of prakrutik (natural) food one step further, Rachit says, “All our food is served in clay utensils and we even sell them to our customers.”
Additionally, the cafe is run by a self-help group called Om Shanti, led by Rekha Ben.
They serve various beverages such as waryali sharbat (fennel drink) and nimbu sharbat (lemonade), and food items such as idli, poha, dhokla, methi thepla, and Gujarati thali.
So far, the cafe has collected 673 kg of plastic from customers, saving them from ending up in landfills.