Dr Tejas Doshi of Bhavnagar, who has been practising as a general physician for 23 years, has been recognised for his exemplary work to make his city plastic-free.

In 2014, he started his work towards environment with the help of only 14 people, and today, 25 lakh people have joined the campaign.

“I have created ‘Joy of Giving’, ‘Don’t Cut the Corner’, ‘One Cloth Bag for 50 Plastic Bags’ and the country’s first ‘Ecobricks Park’ with the concept of recycle, reproduce and reuse. 75 lakh bags have been deposited in the recycling plant for these projects,” said Dr Doshi.

He saw that small and large plastic bags strewn on the road which are harmful for animals. He started the Ecobricks project to solve this problem.

An Ecobrick is a plastic bottle packed with recycled plastic that is used as a building block.

The project included submitting the plastic bottles of one litre capacity filled with plastic bags. Those who submitted three bottles were awarded ₹10 for the same. With this campaign, 1.8 lakh bottles were collected within one year.

With the help of these bottles, the first Ecobricks Park of the country was built in Bhavnagar in a 500 metre space allotted by Bhavnagar Municipal Corporation.

He began his campaign by distributing one cloth bag in exchange of 50 plastic bags, and based on that, he has distributed 1.50 lakh cloth bags so far.