Why ‘plastic surgery’ will not succeed in India

In that captivating Mike Nichols classic film, The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman (in his first major role), asks his father’s business partner – whose wife, Anne Bancroft, he goes on to have an affair with – what advice he can give the young Hoffman, on the career he should take up.

“I just want to say one word to you,” is the businessman’s sage reply, “Plastics.”

Those words somehow stayed with me and I was reminded of them, half a century later, while reading about the recent ban that the Indian state of Maharashtra has imposed on the use of plastic in our day-to-day lives. It is the first Indian state to do so, though the ban has been tried out in different parts of India, with mixed results. Several decades ago, plastic was indeed the miracle material of the time and the advice given to Hoffman in the film was undoubtedly good. Plastics, mostly derived from petrochemicals, have become virtually indispensable over the years. Its uses are multiple: As containers of all kinds of goods, especially food, water, and soft drinks, plastic being so much lighter than glass and virtually unbreakable; then, for shopping and transportation. Apart from its uses, the manufacture of plastics provides jobs to many millions of people and it is an important sector of industrial activity. Many billions of dollars must be invested in the plastics industry all over the world.

However, in recent years, plastic has become a dirty word for environmentalists and consumer activists. Why? Mainly because it is not bio-degradable, and it is also apparently poisonous, even carcinogenic (causing cancer). It has also become a nightmare for municipalities as it cannot be disposed of easily. Burning it releases toxic fumes that pollutes the air. Animals and marine life eat it, often with fatal results. In India, stray cows have been found dead after consuming huge amounts of thrown-away plastic bags. Ninety percent of seabirds contain plastic debris. From the 1950s to this year, an astounding 6.3 billion tonnes of plastic have been produced worldwide. Worse, plastic cannot degrade, as paper does. Some kinds of plastic can last 400 years! Research has also revealed that plastic bottles leech into the liquids kept in them. And since plastic is carcinogenic, ingesting those liquids poses the threat of cancer.

Clearly, there is a strong case for phasing out the use of plastics from our lives, or changing its manufacture to make it a safer product. But the way that the Maharashtra government has gone about it makes no sense. Are all plastic containers hazardous and therefore to be banned? Apparently not, if they are of a certain thickness, or they are only used once – and that, too, very quickly and then thrown away. But how is the thickness to be checked and how can it be ensured that the “once-used” bottle or container is actually discarded and not used again? Though they have set up a high-powered committee of politicians and government officials to monitor the virtual plastic ban, I suspect the Indian authorities have not given enough thought to it.

The Maharashtra authorities have banned every kind of plastic bag, no matter of how thick it is, as well as “non-woven” polypropylene bags (don’t ask me what that means). Disposable items made up of thermocol, such as plates, cups, spoons, glasses, bowls, straws, forks, etc., can only be used once. Plastic sheets and all kinds of plastic films are also banned. But milk pouches and mineral water bottles are allowed, provided the bottle or pouch is returned to the vendor (for which there is a nominal charge), for recycling. There are also pretty hefty fines for use of the banned plastics and for flouting the regulations. How foolish! Given how notoriously corrupt the Indian police and civic officials are, can you imagine the field day they are having – and will continue to have – with such an obviously unimplementable ban, with its various provisos and exceptions? The pollution control board has stopped renewing licences of plastic manufacturing units and told them to shift business to “ecofriendly” products (easier said than done). The All-India Plastic Manufacturers Association has estimated that about half a million jobs will be lost in the state and the plastics industry will lose Rs 40 million annually due to the ban. I should add that very few places in the world, even in advanced countries, have gone in for a virtual blanket ban on plastics, as the Maharashtra government has done.

Wouldn’t it have been more sensible to concentrate on issues more closely related to basic public health, such as providing clean drinking water to citizens, lessening the very high levels of air pollution in Mumbai and Delhi, and the regular clearing of garbage from towns and cities, instead of going in for a ban that may be “politically correct” but hugely impractical?

Clearly, there is a strong case for phasing out the use of plastics from our lives, or changing its manufacture to make it a safer product