Several shopkeepers from across the city who had flouted the ban on plastic bags less than 40 microns thick removed plastic waste from the Maidan on Tuesday as part of a state pollution control board drive.

The board hopes to make the shopkeepers aware of the harm that plastic bags cause to the environment by involving them in the clean-up drive.

“Since Puja, 81 units have been found to violate the 40-micron rule. We had asked their owners to send representatives for the initiative. Many people visit the Maidan in winter and dirty it. By conducting a clean-up now, we wanted to make more people stay away from plastic bags,” said Biswajit Mukherjee, the chief law officer of the board.

Students of Pratt Memorial and the La Martiniere schools for boys and girls, under the banner of NGO PUBLIC, lent a hand to the traders.

Representatives of only 23 of the 81 violating units joined Tuesday’s drive but the authorities expect a better turnout for such initiatives in the future.

Participation of the units, which had to pay fines between Rs 1,000 and Rs 4,000 each for violating the ban, was not mandatory. A letter sent to the units by the board said presence of their representatives in the drive would be “treated as a token of repentance”.

Among those who turned up were representatives of sweet shops. “We have unknowingly violated the law and are trying to help in this initiative to make up for it. We would request the pollution control board to take steps to ban not just the use but the manufacture of plastic bags,” said Jagannath Ghosh, the assistant secretary of the Paschim Banga Mistanna Byabasai Samity.

“We have joined hands with the board. The uniqueness of this initiative is that the Tiljala Society for Human and Educational Development is taking away the plastic to recycle it. But there has to be a concerted effort. PUBLIC has a Victoria Memorial project where the children stand at the gate twice a week, take away the plastic bags of the visitors and hand them paper bags,” said Bonani Kakkar of PUBLIC.

For the students, the drive is a practical way of making defaulters realise their mistake. “We generally clean the Maidan alone. Those who cleaned the Maidan with us will definitely refrain from using plastic the next time,” said Class XI student Dikshay Thawani of La Martiniere for Boys.