India’s single-use plastic ban has evoked mixed reactions from environmental activists and experts. Amendments to existing plastic waste management legislation will see the phasing out of 20 flexible plastic items according an index that weighs up said single-use plastics against their relative utility level as well as potential environmental impact. The items will be banned from markets as of July 1, 2022. Products to be banned include non-woven carry bags, plastic straws, foamed cups, bowls and plates as well as disposable rigid cups, trays and containers.
Yet there is a loophole in the new legislation-select plastic commodities judged to be environmentally unsustainable as well as of negligent usefulness may still be manufactured, stocked, imported as well as sold from the July 2022 cut-off date onwards. The Indian government has provided the plastics industry with a 10-year grace period to comply with the new regulations. Government officials claim that the decision was made to accommodate the needs of plastic manufacturers, who claimed that the economic cost of adopting alternative solutions for plastic packaging is a cause for leniency.
As a whole, plastic packaging waste is intended to be collected and managed by individual manufacturers as part of their EPR responsibility. This practice, however, may encourage brands to market EPR as part of their corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy, thereby automatically limiting the reach and extent of recycling activities which, in this context, are defined as ‘voluntary’ rather than as actually enforced by the government. India has sought to curb plastic pollution since 1999, when the sale of thin polythene bags was first prohibited, yet the attempt has so far met with little success.
Source: Waste Management World
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