Single-Use Plastic Ban in India
WHAT’S HAPPENING?
Beginning July 1, single-use plastic will be banned in India. The ban includes manufacture, import, stocking distribution, sale and use of single-use plastic items. The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has recently issued a list of measures to impose the ban.
WHAT IS SINGLE-USE PLASTIC?
• Single-use plastics, or disposable plastics, are used only once before they are thrown away or recycled.
• They include- plastic bags, straws, water bottles and most food packaging.
• They are petroleum based & are not biodegradable.
IMPACT ON ENVIRONMENT
If not recycled, plastic can take a thousand years to decompose, according to UN Environment, the United Nations Environment Programme. At landfills, it disintegrates into small fragments and leaches carcinogenic metals into groundwater. Plastic is highly inflammable — a reason why landfills are frequently ablaze, releasing toxic gases into the environment. It floats on the sea surface and ends up clogging airways of marine animals.
PLASTIC WASTE MANAGEMENT IN INDIA
The Plastic Waste Management Rules, 2016 notified by the Centre called for a ban on “non recyclable and multi-layered” packaging by March 2018, and A ban on carry bags of thickness less than 50 microns (which is about the thickness of a strand of human hair). The Rules were amended in 2018, with changes that activists say favoured the plastic industry & allowed manufacturers escape route. The 2016 Rules did not mention SUPs.
On World Environment Day in 2018, India pledged to phase out SUPs by 2022. In August last year, Centre announced a ban on single use plastic beginning July 2022. A notification by the Environment Ministry on Plastic Waste Management Amendment Rules, 2021, said: “The manufacture, import, stocking, distribution, sale and use of… single-use plastic, including polystyrene and expanded polystyrene commodities shall be prohibited with effect from the 1st July, 2022.”
ITEMS COVERED
The items that will be banned are – Earbuds with plastic sticks, plastic sticks for balloons, plastic flags, candy sticks, ice-cream sticks, polystyrene (thermocol) for decoration, plastic plates, cups, glasses, cutlery such as forks, spoons and knives, straw, trays, wrapping films around sweet boxes, invitation cards, and cigarette packets, plastic or PVC banners less than 100-microns and stirrers. The ban will not apply to commodities made of compostable plastic.
HOW BIG IS THE PROBLEM
There is no comprehensive data on the volume of the total plasticb waste in the country. A 2015 study by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) surveyed 60 cities and extrapolated the data to estimate that, The country generated around 26,000 tonnes of plastic waste daily in 2011-12, equivalent to the weight of 4,700 elephants.
About 70% of the plastic waste was collected; 60% was recycled. It is likely that the actual daily generation of plastic waste is much more. According to the Plastic Waste Management Rules, all states and UTs are required to send annual data to the CPCB; however, many states and UTs have failed to comply.
IMPACT ON ECONOMY
• A large part of existing investments, machinery, business processes and jobs in the plastics industry may be in trouble.
• Only big companies might be able to afford additional costs to replace old machinery.
• The burden of a plastic ban will disproportionately affect the poor because of the price of plastic bags.
The packaged drinking water industry told the government that the PET bottles used by them should not be classified as single use plastic. It will have adverse impact on the Rs 30,000 crore industry since no alternative was immediately possible.
THE PARADOX
• The paradox of the plastic bag is that its total environmental footprint is actually much lower than that of alternatives.
• According to a study conducted by the Danish government in 2018, you need to use a paper bag 43 times to achieve the same cumulative environmental impact as a plastic bag.
• To achieve the same environmental impact as the plastic bag, a cotton bag would have to be used 7,100 times.
If India’s proposed ban on single-use plastics
is successful, the benefit is that we will reduce
plastic pollution, but at the cost of worsening
the cumulative environmental impact.