Reporting losses

The government misses the point by miles when it decides to set up committee after committee to 'manage' plastic waste. To the polymer industry's delight, the government's actions divert attention from the principal problem: unaccountable producers of plastics.

The Union government's latest off-target missile, and a dud at that, has been the Ranganath Misra Committee set up in July 2001 under the former chief justice's leadership. Meant to advise the government on management of plastic waste, the committee recently submitted its report to the Union ministry for environment and forests (mef).

But some committee members say they do not know the contents of report. They have not signed on the copy. The mef refuses to make the report public. Down To Earth investigations reveal that the recommendations made at the last meeting of the committee on February 16 and those recorded in the report vary. Even the little that the committee had recommended in the right direction may have been diluted (see box: Doctored?). A B Akolkar, senior scientist at the Central Pollution Control Board and party to the deliberations, says "Some contentious issues, for instance a ban on import of plastics, the future of pvc and incineration have been left up to the government to decide upon." Indrani Chandrasekharan, director at mef had earlier stated during the committee deliberations that the government is keen to use incinerators and is against a ban on imports of plastics. This suggests that the ambivalence in the report could favour the industry.

The committee was also expected to suggest a ban on polythene bags. But it recommended in its last meeting that polythene bags below 100 micron thickness (instead of 20 micron thick) be banned. It also suggested that the producers buy back polyethylene terephthalate (pet) bottles.

Repeat (non)performance
But Misra committee is the mef 's latest venture. Earlier, forced by unrelenting pressure form the civil society groups the government set up a National Plastics Waste Management Task Force in September 1996 to suggest guidelines to manage plastic waste. The innumerable industry representatives on board ensured the mandate of the task force remained limited.

On the basis of the task force's recommendations the government came out with Recycled Plastics Manufacture and Usage Rules, 1999. These rules, among other things, recommended that all plastic bags of thickness below 20 micron be banned. But when state governments enacted regulations on the basis of this suggestion, they fell flat on their face. No one could recognise the difference between a 20-micron bag and, say, a 40 micron one. But as reported earlier (see: ' Plastic Unlimited' Down To Earth, Vol 9. No 14 December 15, 2000) the purpose of the suggestion was more nefarious. Had it worked, the polymer industry would have ensured that recycled bags (which fall below the 20-micron limit) go out of market and that virgin plastic-based thicker bags are sold in larger numbers, adding to the polymer companies' profits. "Banning the use of bags of less than 20 microns was useless. The government should have simply put a blanket ban on manufacture, import, marketing and use of films and bags," says Kisan Mehta, president of Mumbai based Save Bombay Committee.

The usurping of laws to aid industry is a trick that the polymer sector is well versed with say industry watchers. The efficiency of the industry in manipulating the government is evident. The task force set up to suggest control of plastic waste actually ended up recommending that a polymer industry-funded 'society' be created to generate awareness about how 'good' plastics are. Three years later the same society, named Indian Centre for Plastics in the Environment (icpe), was used to 'represent' civil society on the Misra committee.

Hogwash
The task force and the committee had limited mandates. They could have made a dent in their limited arena and set up a precedent for curtailing the environmental damage from the entire polymer industry. Both, unfortunately, failed miserably at their task, aver experts. For one, 'management' of polythene bags and the plastic waste require tail pipe tinkering -- managing the menace once it has been created. Instead the two bodies should have looked at how to reduce and limit the menace in the first place, say experts. The government misreads the symptom for the disease they say.

One plausible way to limit the environmental damage is to make the producers responsible for their products and their harmful consequences. Chaturvedi refers to the European model based on extended producer responsibility (epr) as a good example . W e can learn quite a few things from countries that put the onus on producers to take back products and pay for managing the waste, says Chaturvedi. "The plastic industry till date has held the government to ransom," says one state pollution control board representative. epr could ensure, that it now begins to pay back for the mess it has created.