19 single-use plastic items are banned in India but we use many more types of such items
In August 2021, India banned 19 single-use plastic (SUP) items through an amendment to the Plastic Waste Management Rules, 2016. For the first time in the country, these selected items were also defined as “plastic items intended to be used once for the same purpose before being disposed of or recycled.”
With this, India has joined a list of more than 170 countries that have already banned such items. SUPs may be unnecessary and problematic, adding to the issue of the plastic menace. Banning and implementing these bans on SUPs can contribute to addressing the issue of plastic pollution.
The Indian government prohibited the manufacture, import, stocking, distribution, sale and use of 19 identified single-use plastic items on the basis of utility, littering potential, application and thickness of the plastic.
This includes plastic cutlery, crockery, plastic carry bags of less than 120 microns, nonwoven carry bags of less than 75 grams per square metre and plastic banners of less than 100 microns, apart from single use plastic cutlery like straws, spoons, knives and crockery like plates, cups and glasses.
However, we use many more single-use plastic items than the ones considered for the ban. For instance — mineral water bottles, beverage bottles, tetrapacks, multilayered packaging, etc. These items were not covered in the SUP ban imposed by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change (MoEF&CC).
Moreover, the definition of SUP does not identify, acknowledge, or differentiate between problematic, unnecessary and non-recyclable plastic. One yardstick that should be considered for identifying plastics for the ban is the (non) recyclability of plastics.
Delhi-based think tank Centre for Science and Environment has been advocating for banning non-recyclable plastic for the last eight years. The question we are asking is — why do we allow the manufacturing of plastic that cannot be recycled and can only be sent to the dumpsites in our cities?
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