Single-use Plastic to be banned |
| Credit: Corpbiz |
POLICY
• The CPCB has announced that single-use plastic items will be banned in India w.e.f July 1, 2022.
• Ban will be imposed on single-use plastic items having low utility and high littering potential.
• The ban includes the manufacture, import, stocking, distribution, sale, and use of single use plastic items.
WHY IS IT GETTING BANNED
• Single-use plastics account for 33% of all plastic produced globally, with 98% manufactured from fossil fuels.
• Single-use plastic also accounted for the majority of plastic discarded about 130 million metric tonnes globally in 2019.
• Such plastic is usually burned, buried in landfills, or discarded directly into the environment.
• As far as India is concerned, it is ranked at 94th position in single-use plastic waste generation (the top three being Singapore, Australia, and Oman)
• India's domestic production is around 11.8 million metric tonnes annually, and it imports around 2.9 MMT annually
• India's net generation of single-use plastic waste is around 5.6 MMT, and per capita generation is almost 4 kg.
ALTERNATIVES
• Instead of plastics, the CPCB has urged consumers to opt for eco-friendly alternatives.
• Instead of plastic bags, the government urges you to use cotton bags
• For plastic cutlery, the alternative being offered is bamboo
• For household items like cleaning brushes, etc. the alternative renewable resource could be wood sourced from sustainably-managed forests
• For food storage and tableware, the replacement being offered is pottery and other fired ceramics which offer a stable and waterproof alternative
• Even after this if one must use plastic, the pollution-control body says that option could be 'compostable plastics'.
• However, we will have to wait and see how effective these alternatives prove to be.
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