The Plastic conundrum

The increasing use of single-use plastic items is taking a devastating toll on our environment. To counteract the ill-effects of plastic, many Indian states have already put a blanket ban on the use of single-use plastic items particularly plastic carry bags but the sluggish implementation of the ban is keeping it only on paper. Indian government needs to lay down a strong and robust policy regime to see the intended results on the ground

India will celebrate the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi on October 2, 2019. The government had set a target of making India clean
by then to pay tribute to the Father of the Nation on the occasion. We have one year to go but the country will have to travel a long distance to make India clean. The government has made stupendous efforts under Swachh Bharat Mission and has taken long strides in toilet making, Solid Waste Management and cleaning water bodies. Still, the government has not been able to find a feasible, long-term solution to the plastic menace. If India
wants to become a clean country, the government will have to put in place stringent policy measures and implementation mechanisms to clean our streets, public spaces and water bodies of plastic waste. Plastic was invented less than a century ago but its use in our day-to-day lives is so rampant and widespread that one can find it on the peaks of tallest mountains and in the darkest corners of oceans. Plastic is omnipresent. It
is used in almost everything around us — cars, toys, goggles, clothes, furniture, window shields, factory equipment, computers, mobile phones,
kitchenware, etc. Many of these items are durable and used for long periods
of time but the use of single-use plastic items especially plastic carry bags,
straws, disposable plates and bottles is increasingly becoming a huge burden on our environment. These items are used for a few minutes or a few hours and go away but actually, they don’t. They end up on streets, landfill sites or in waterbodies and pollute our environment. Plastic bags that became popular in the 1970s among the masses replaced cloth and paper bags in a couple of years. According to available data, one million plastic bags are consumed every minute globally. Around the world, 1 million plastic drinking bottles are purchased every minute. Every year
we use up to 5 trillion disposable plastic bags. Some countries have controlled the use by mandating tax on single-use plastic items or completing banning them. As per studies, people use an average of four single-use plastic bags a year in Denmark, compared to one a day in the USA. The exact data for Indian citizens are not available. In a report released by Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFC), Dr Harsh Vardhan writes, “Plastics have become a part of everyone’s life and Indians are no exception. However, the per capita plastic consumption in India is much lower (11 kg per capita per annum) as compared to the global average (28 kg), and per capita consumption in developed countries such as USA (139 kg) and the European Union (65 kg). At the same time, the Indian plastics industry’s growth rate is one of the highest in the world and, due to rapidly expanding incomes, the per capita consumption of plastic is likely to increase.”
While plastic has many valuable usages, people have become overreliant
on single-use or disposable plastic which has severe environmental consequences. In total, 50 per cent of the plastic used is single use. As per a report published by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) in 2013, Indians discard 15,342 tonnes of plastic waste daily, of which about 60
percent is recycled. The recycling rate in India is considerably higher than
the global average of 14 per cent. Yet, there are over 6,100 tonnes of plastics
being dumped in landfills or ending up polluting streams or groundwater
resources. Over 8 million plastic waste ends up in oceans. According to a 2017 article in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, of the world’s ten rivers that carry 90 per cent of the plastics the oceans receive, three are in India: the Indus, the Ganga and the Brahmaputra. Some studies suggest that if the consumption continues at the same rate the plastic waste in the sea will outweigh the marine wildlife. In the last one decade, a movement to ban the use of plastic bags and other single-use plastic items such as straws has gained momentum because of its hazards on the environment and marine wildlife. Bangladesh was the first country to ban plastic carry bags in 2002 after the devastating floods in the country and the studies found that plastic bags clogged the drainage system in many parts of the country. Many other countries including South Africa, Rwanda, China, Australia, and Italy followed suit.

The use of plastic in our day-to-day lives is so rampant and widespread that one can find it on the peaks of tallest mountains and in the farthest corners of oceans. Plastic seems to be omnipresent. Plastic bags that became popular in the 1970s among masses replaced cloth and paper bags in just a couple of years. According to available data, one million plastic bags are consumed every minute globally. As per
studies, people use an average of four single-use plastic bags a year in Denmark, compared to one a day in the USA. The exact data for Indian citizens are not available

The consequences

Most of the things of our daily-use come packed in plastic bags; whether it’s milk pouch, tea leaves, chips, biscuits; a small portion of these bags is recycled and most of it ends up in landfill sites. Scientists say that it takes over 1000 years for a plastic bag to disintegrate completely. That is the reason landfill sites in our cities and our water bodies are full of plastic bags and other kinds of disposable plastic items. A large amount of plastic we use escapes the waste collection system and ends on our streets and sometimes makes its way into urban water supply thus into our bodies. The plastic trash, whether on landfill sites or oceans, is constantly exposed to ultraviolet rays and breaks into microplastic. These particles are traveling into our bodies through the food chain. Microplastic has been found in sea salt, tap water, seafood and even in the household dust. According to the World Environment Day website for 2018, plastics can also serve as a magnet for other pollutants, including dioxins, metals, and pesticides. Plastic carry bags and other items contain a number of chemicals, many of which are toxic or disrupt hormones. In 2018, #BeatPlasticPollution was the theme for World Environment Day. It was a call to action for all to come together and combat one of the biggest environmental challenges of our time. India was the host country for World Environment Day 2018 and chose the theme.

The flip side

There is a flip side to the story. Banning plastic is not the ultimate solution to environmental problems as it is not the only environmental challenge that the world faces today. Some of the substitutes of plastic have a greater
negative impact on the environment. For example, the manufacturing of
a cotton bag results in much higher emission than a plastic bag. It is reported that to equalize the same a cotton bag needs to be used 7100 times.
Similarly, the use of plastic bags in packaging saves a huge amount of food
from getting wasted. Handling plastic waste is a complicated issue. It needs
to be addressed globally to reduce the impact on humanity.

Lack of effective deterrence

As many as 25 Indian states and union territories have imposed partial or
complete ban on the use of single-use plastic items including carry bags.
These states include Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Delhi, Odisha and Assam among many others. The laws to regulate the plastic use and recycling have been in place, for almost two decades, since 1999. The Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change notified the Plastic
Waste Management Rules, 2016 in March 2016. The legislation aims to tackle the plastics waste menace by making source segregation of waste
mandatory. The ambition is to follow a waste-to-wealth pathway via recovery, reuse and recycling. The Plastic Waste Management Rules also include provisions for the implementation of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). It is designed to promote the integration of environmental costs associated with goods throughout their life cycles into the market price of the products. Despite several rules on paper, the use of plastic is rampant because of sluggish implementation. However, everything is not gloomy. A host of civic authorities, civil society organisations and individuals like of Afroj Shah and Aditya Mukarji have
come forward to reduce the burden of plastics on society. Shah cleaned up the Versova Beach by mobilising citizens and Mukarji replacing 50,000 plastic straws. Over five million Bharat Scouts and Guides (BSG) have pledged to give up their plastic woggles, a signature element of the BSG uniform, and replace it with more sustainable and eco-friendly options. Examples abound from Ukhrul in Manipur becoming a plastic free district to Vengurla taluka banning plastic bags and using plastics to make roads. The start-up Banyan Nation has helped global brands to use more recycled plastics. There are many such striking examples.
Indian cities can also learn from the experiences of other countries; many of which banned plastic items as long as 25 years ago. Ireland was the first country to place a significant tax on plastic bags — now 22 euro cents — at checkout in 2002. This resulted in 94 per cent drop in the use of plastic bags in the country. Another country Rwanda implemented a strict plastic bag ban in 2008. And, the illegal use of plastic bags can result in fines or jail time. Formulating such laws and policies will bear results only when
the implementation is done efficiently. No country can wriggle-out of the
plastic problem by looking the other way. Among all this commotion over
the ban and restrictions on the use of plastic items, the actions of individuals remain the most important part of shunning plastic items from our daily lives. The next step could be making the producers responsible for safely disposing of the waste generated from their products and then advocating with the governments and policymakers to ensure our environment is clean by having a robust and running system of waste management. Together we can beat plastic pollution and leave behind
a sustainable planet for our future generations. As rightly put by Gov.
Andrew M. Cuomo while introducing a bill to ban single-use plastic items in
New York by 2019, “We did not inherit the earth, we are merely borrowing it from our children.”