Plastic challenge ban on single use items will be difficult to enforce goi should work with industry on alternatives

Plastic challenge ban on single use items will be difficult to enforce goi should work with industry on alternatives

There’s no denying that plastics are a menace. But whether the nationwide single-use plastic ban beginning from today will be an effective counteraction is in doubt. Tonnes of plastic waste are dumped at landfills or out into the open oceans where they disintegrate into tiny microplastics that find their way into marine life or terrestrial animals. From there they eventually enter the human food chain. The Central Pollution Control Board had estimated that India generates around 9,200 metric tonnes of plastic waste daily. This is most likely a gross underestimation.

GoI notified the Plastic Waste Management (Amendment) Rules, 2021 in August last year, prohibiting 20 single-use plastic items by 2022. Nineteen of those will be banned from today, including ubiquitous plastic cutleries. Plastic carry bags with a thickness less than 120 microns will be banned from end of December. True, experts have pointed out that the scope of the ban is too small. But even the current effort is unlikely to succeed in a meaningful way.

The problem is that alternatives to everyday plastic items are far more expensive. For example, paper straws cost five times as much as plastic straws. With such economics, the single-use plastic ban is likely to hurt small vendors and manufacturers disproportionately. And given current inflation levels, there are far greater incentives to breach the ban. Remote possibilities of paying steep fines and jail time won’t blunt that incentive. A better approach would be to work with the plastic industry to foster innovation and boost production of compostable plastics. In fact, GoI should support the creation of an entire waste management system around compostable plastics from labelling to setting up industrial composting units. These are tougher jobs than issuing ban orders. But they have a much better shot at reducing the damage plastics do.