Lack of alternatives may hurt decision to phase out plastics

Rehabilitation of 5mn workers in single-use plastic manufacturing sector another task at hand

Use of single-use plastic products such as carry bags and bottled water is not yet banned in India, but they are on their way out after the Centre enforced a voluntary phasing out of disposable plastics through a mass awareness drive led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

India is preparing for a complete phase-out of single-use plastic items by 2022, as announced by Modi on Wednesday. At least 29 states and Union territories are already regulating the use of various single-use plastic products, but enforcement has been lax until now. In fact, plastic bags of less than 50 micron thickness — the kind handed out by street vendors — are already prohibited under the Plastic Waste Management Rules 2016 issued by the Centre but poor enforcement means that they continue to be widely available.

“The PM has called for a mass awareness movement asking people to switch to non-plastic alternatives, and where there is no alternative, plastic products should be disposed of properly so that they can be recycled,” said CK Mishra, secretary, ministry of environment and forests.

The Centre’s recent advisory suggests that states “curb” the manufacturing of plastic carry bags, with or without handles, irrespective of the thickness and size; plastic cutlery including plates, plastic cups, glasses, straws, stirrers and Styrofoam cutlery by October 2 and instead encourage manufacturers and consumers to shift to environment-friendly materials.

In standard guidelines on sin“Plastics

gle-use plastics shared with the states in September, the environment ministry also suggested that states come up with legal options to phase out certain single-use plastic products.

The next couple of years will be fraught with challenges such as the lack of viable and affordable alternatives, rehabilitating about five million people working in the single-use plastic manufacturing sector and enforcing decentralised waste segregation on a massive scale so that plastic waste can be recovered and recycled.

India generates about 9.46 million tonnes of plastic waste per year, of which about 40% remains uncollected, according to Un-plastic Collective (UPC), a voluntary initiative launched by

United Nations Environment Programme, Confederation of Indian Industry and World Wildlife Fund India.

The Central Pollution Control Board’s Gap Analysis of compliance reports submitted by states on waste management published in July gives an idea of what a massive problem the Centre has at hand. The report shows that 18 states don’t have any information on how much plastic waste they are generating, 19 states haven’t submitted any information on how they are acting against noncompliance with plastic waste management rules and no state has any information on labelling of plastic carry bags and multilayered plastic for packaging.

The report also said that most states didn’t have any information on whether urban local bodies have set up plastic waste management systems to collect and segregate waste.

In July 2005, when record rain and floods killed 1,000 people in Mumbai, urban planners said plastic waste choked drains and water bodies, worsening the impact of the showers. CPCB’s plastic waste guidelines said single-use plastics make land infertile, are ingested by cattle and contaminate groundwater by releasing toxins into the soil.

Moreover, the open burning of plastic waste—a common sight in the fringes of metro cities and smaller towns —can release carcinogenic and hormone-disrupting chemicals like dioxin.

are a huge environmental concern because once plastic reaches the environment in the form of macro- or microplastics, it contaminates and accumulates in food chains through agricultural soils, terrestrial and aquatic food chains, and the water supply… all plastic waste management technologies result in the release of toxic metals such as lead and mercury, organic substances (dioxins and furans), acid gases, and other toxic substances to the air, water, and soils,” said Swati Singh Sambyal, programme manager - environmental governance (waste management) at Delhi-based non-profit Centre for Science and Environment. There are challenges related to collection and segregation as well.

India has seven million workers who collect single-use plastic waste and pass it on for recycling but in many cases, single-use plastic is difficult to retrieve as the waste is not segregated. “Waste workers generate close to ~1,200 crores annually. We can play an important role in managing single use plastic waste provided we are assisted with baling, shredding and segregation machines. Plastic packaging you see on biscuit and chips packets was not getting recycled until recently; it is being used for road construction now,” said Shashi Bhushan Pandit of All India Ragpickers Union.

The environment ministry is yet to develop a framework on how extended producer responsibility (EPR) will be enforced so that plastic manufacturers can contribute in waste management.

The Plastic Waste Management Rules 2016 have a provision for EPR. “The micro, small and medium enterprise sector will be badly hit if there is a sudden phase-out. The government must give us time...,” said Deepak Ballani, director general of the All India Plastic Manufacturer’s Association.