India has banned single-use plastics. It’s now illegal to make, import or distribute a range of items from plastic cutlery to straws, and packing film to polystyrene.
The government has exempted plastic bags but has asked suppliers to make them thicker to encourage their reuse. According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), India uses around 14 million tonnes of plastic annually. Plastic pollution is a growing problem in the country. Discarded plastic items clog drains and rivers, and harm wildlife.
Critics claim the ban could hard to enforce, but the government says it will set up control rooms around the country to check for any illegal sales or usage of banned items.
India is not alone in its mission to eradicate single-use plastics. Colombia’s government has also passed a law banning them. It will take effect by 2025. Last year France banned plastic wrapping on fruit and vegetables. This could mean 1 billion fewer plastic items being used each year. The WEF reports that 75% of people world-wide support a ban on single-use plastics, according to a recent poll by Reuters.
Announcing the ban, the government dismissed the demands of food, beverage and consumer goods companies to hold off the restriction to avoid disruptions, WEF reports. Plastic waste has become a significant source of pollution in India, the world’s second most populous country.
Rapid economic growth has fueled demand for goods that come with single-use plastic products, such as straws and disposable cutlery. But India lacks an organized system for managing plastic waste, leading to widespread littering.
Streets across towns are littered with used plastic goods. India’s ban on single-use plastic items includes straws, cutlery, ear buds, packaging films, plastic sticks for balloons, candy and ice-cream, and cigarette packets, among other products, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government said in a statement.
PepsiCo (PEP.O), Coca-Cola Co (KO.N), India’s Parle Agro, Dabur (DABU.NS) and Amul had lobbied for straws to be exempted from the ban. Other than the food and beverage and consumer goods companies, plastic manufacturers have also complained about the ban. They say were not given adequate time to prepare for the restriction.
According to the United Nations, plastic waste is at epidemic proportions in the world’s oceans, with an estimated 100 million tonnes dumped there. Scientists have found large amounts of micro plastic in the intestines of deep-dwelling ocean mammals like whales.
More than 90% of plastic is never recycled, and a whopping 8 million metric tons of plastic waste are dumped into the oceans annually. At this rate, there will be more plastic than fish in the world’s oceans by 2050.
The Global Plastic Action Partnership (GPAP) is a collaboration between businesses, international donors, national and local governments, community groups and world-class experts seeking meaningful actions to beat plastic pollution.
In Ghana, for example, GPAP is working with technology giant SAP to create a group of more than 2,000 waste pickers and measuring the quantities and types of plastic that they collect. This data is then analysed alongside the prices that are paid throughout the value chain by buyers in Ghana and internationally.
It aims to show how businesses, communities and governments can redesign the global “take-make-dispose” economy as a circular one in which products and materials are redesigned, recovered and reused to reduce environmental impacts.
