More harmful than atom bomb itself

​Srinagar: Twenty-five Indian states/Union territories now have some form of ban on polythene carry bags, but the implementation is often lax, and plastic—which takes hundreds of years to decompos—continues to be used, which gathers in India’s water bodies and landfills, according to an IndiaSpend investigation.

In Jammu and Kashmir, many vendors have not heard of the three-month-old ban. In Karnataka and Punjab, where a ban is in place since 2016, it remains ineffective in most parts, as there is widespread availability of and demand for polythene bags. In Arunachal Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, there is confusion about permissible grades of polythene. In Uttarakhand, the use is “gradually fading out”, experts said, while in Rajasthan, awareness campaigns seem to be paying off.

Jammu and Kashmir and Maharashtra became the latest states to ban the use of polythene carry bags: in January and March 2018, respectively. Using a plastic bag can attract fines—from Rs 500 to Rs 25,000—and storage and distribution can lead to imprisonment up to five years.

The plastic problem
Every day, Indian cities generate 15,000 tonnes of plastic waste—enough to fill 1,500 trucks, at 10 tonnes per truck—of which 9,000 tonnes are collected and processed/recycled, while the remaining 6,000 tonnes, or 600 truckloads, usually litter drains, streets or are dumped in landfills, according to a January 2015 assessment report of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB).

About 66 percent of plastic waste is mixed waste: polybags and pouches used to pack food, mainly from residential localities, the CPCB report said.Plastic additives from landfills can cause considerable pollution problems by contaminating the surrounding soil, ground or surface waters, a 2015 study by the CPCB showed.

About 1 million seabirds and 1,00,000 marine mammals die each year globally from ingesting plastic or by getting tangled in nylon fishing line, nets, six-pack plastic can holders, and plastic rope, according to estimates.

In May 2012, two Supreme Court judges, Justice Singhvi and Justice Mukhopadhaya, said that “the next generation will be threatened with something more serious than the atom bomb” unless a “total ban on plastic is put in place”.

India generates 5.6 million tonnes of plastic waste annually, and the country accounts for 60 per cent of plastic waste dumped into the world’s oceans every year, estimates suggest. Three of the world’s ten rivers which carry 90 per cent of plastic to the world’s oceans are in India – the Indus, the Ganga and the Brahmaputra – according to an October 2017 article in Environmental Science & Technology, a global journal.

The alternatives to plastic, such as cotton or jute bags, are often expensive.So, some states permit polythene bags above 50 microns thickness, as it is likely to “increase the cost by about 20 percent [and] hence, the tendency to provide free carry bags will come down and collection by the waste-pickers [will] also increase to some extent”, according to the Plastic Waste Management Rules 2016.

Twenty Indian states have a complete ban on manufacture, supply and storage of polythene bags and other plastic items such as cups, plates, spoons, glasses while five states have a partial ban.
 Availability at cheap prices and continued supply are barriers.

Following Jammu and Kashmir’s ban on use of polythene bags, we spoke to local shopkeepers to assess the level of implementation. “I heard about the ban only from you,” Abdul Majeed Paul, a shopkeeper in Ompora-Budgam, told IndiaSpend when asked why he was packing goods in plastic carry bags. “No other customer talks about it. In fact, they ask for more polythene bags if they buy a lot of things.” Says Gulzar Ahmad, a vendor in Srinagar’s busy Batamaloo area: “Let the government ban manufacturing of polythene, people will automatically use non-plastic bags…” 

In Karnataka, there is a blanket ban on manufacture, storage, distribution and use of plastics such as carry bags, banners, plastic plates, cups and spoons. Yet, the ban is “ineffective in several areas though it is certainly making some impact in some parts”, Megha Shenoy, adjunct fellow at the Bengaluru-based Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), told IndiaSpend. Several authorities are mandated to enforce the ban, often leading to “shunting responsibility” from one department to the next, Shenoy said.
 
The confusion
In some states, there is confusion about whether the ban is complete or partial. Tapek Riba, member secretary at the Pollution Control Board of Arunachal Pradesh said polythene carry bags are not completely banned in his state, whereas information collected by IndiaSpend from CPCB showed that there is a complete ban.  “The restriction is only on [polythene bags of] thickness of less than 50 microns,” Riba told IndiaSpend. “In some districts, it is completely banned, but in most of the districts, it is partially banned,” Riba said, adding that on random checks, the authorities ascertain thickness by feel/touch.

Asked why the implementation of ban is not successful, Riba said there needs to be proper awareness about the harmful effects. In Uttar Pradesh, lobbying led to dilution of the blanket ban to a partial ban on bags with thickness below 50 microns. resulted in alteration of the ban.  A total ban looks impossible unless “a top-down approach is adopted and production of plastic is controlled or regulated”, SP Subudhi, member secretary of the Uttarakhand Environment Protection and Pollution Control Board, told us. 

Plastic should be banned nation-wide and only biodegradable plastic bags should be in use in accordance with the efforts being made by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB). The Centre recently introduced the goods and services tax (GST) across India and all of us are seeing how successfully it being implemented. Similarly, if use of plastic carry bags is curbed across India, it will have a huge impact on implementation, says Krunesh Singh, Chief environmental engineer, Punjab Pollution Control Board. 

By: Athar Parvaiz
(Courtesy: Indiaspend.com)