Small manufacturers lament plastic ban will kill business

The permitted thickness of plastic bags will be increased to 75 microns from September 30

NEW DELHI: The latest plastic waste management rules will punish small and medium-scale traders, while the multinationals involved in the business will not feel the heat of new regulations, experts and manufacturers said on Saturday, a day after a notification was issued by the Union government.

The Union environment ministry notified the Plastic Waste Management Amendment Rules (2021) that prohibits the manufacture, import, stocking, distribution, sale and use of identified single-use plastic items.

Atin Biswas, programme director (municipal solid waste), Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), said the list of 19-20 plastic items that will be banned by the government from July 1 next year, is dominated by articles that are manufactured and sold by small or medium-scale manufacturers and traders. The notification will not significantly affect large companies that are responsible for nearly 45-50% of plastic waste generation in the country, he said.

“For instance, if we talk about earbuds that have been listed among the items to be banned by next year, I can only recall one or two big companies that manufacture these. Otherwise, you will see vendors in trains or buses selling earbuds. Through this notification, these are the people—mostly informal sector for whom it is a matter of survival—who will be impacted,” Biswas said.The permitted thickness of plastic bags, currently 50 microns, will be increased to 75 microns from September 30 this year, and to 120 microns from December 31, 2022.

The products that have been banned include earbuds with plastic sticks, plastic sticks for balloons, plastic flags, candy sticks, ice-cream sticks, polystyrene (thermocol) for decoration, plates, cups, glasses, cutlery such as forks, spoons, knives, straw, trays, wrapping or packing films around sweet boxes, invitation cards, and cigarette packets, plastic or PVC banners of less than 100-micron thickness.

HT on Saturday spoke to several small-scale manufacturers and traders of the items that will be phased out by next year. Most of them said that the amendment was “biased” towards the big companies and will lead to the closure of their units.

Rajesh Mittal of the plastic manufacturers and traders association in Delhi said the ministry

has defined single-use plastic as “a plastic item intended to be used once for the same purpose before being disposed off or recycled”. He said when the government has clearly defined what comprises single-use plastic, then why items such as milk packets, shampoo sachets, small pet bottles have been exempted from the ban.

“This is a biased law that is meant to benefit the big companies while pushing the small units to closure. The worst impacted would be small industries manufacturing plastic bags, straws and cutlery, which do not have the required technology to abide by the new directions. If you want to impose a ban then do so for all single-use plastic items, but you have not touched the big players,” Mittal said.

Traders in Mayapuri industrial area, which has several small and medium units that manufacture plastic items -from plastic cutlery, straws, earbuds, plastic films to covers for invitation cards, cigarette packs, straws etc -- said the Covid-19 pandemic has already impacted their business, and this amendment will only push them further into debt and out of business.