Context: Recently, government has notified Plastic Waste Management Amendment Rules, 2021, prohibiting identified single-use plastic items by 2022.

Key Points

• The government has banned the manufacture, sale and use of identified single-use plastic items like plates, cups, straws, trays, and polystyrene from Jul 1, 2022.
• The thickness of plastic carry bags has been increased from fifty microns to seventy five microns with effect from 30th September, 2021 and to one hundred and twenty microns with effect from the 31st December, 2022.

In short

The manufacture, import, stocking, distribution, sale and use of following single-use plastic, including polystyrene and expanded polystyrene, commodities shall be prohibited with effect from the 1st July, 2022:

• ear buds with plastic sticks, plastic sticks for balloons, plastic flags, candy sticks, ice-cream sticks, polystyrene [Thermocol] for decoration;
• plates, cups, glasses, cutlery such as forks, spoons, knives, straw, trays, wrapping or packing films around sweet boxes, invitation cards, and cigarette packets, plastic or PVC banners less than 100 micron, stirrers.

The plastic packaging waste shall be collected and managed in an environmentally sustainable way through the Extended Producer Responsibility of the Producer, importer and Brand owner (PIBO).

• For effective implementation of Extended Producer Responsibility, the Guidelines for Extended Producer Responsibility being brought out have been given legal force through Plastic Waste Management Amendment Rules, 2021.
• However, The ban will not apply to commodities made of compostable plastic.

Implementing Agency: The Central Pollution Control Board, along with state pollution bodies, will monitor the ban, identify violations, and impose penalties already prescribed under the Environmental Protection Act, 1986.
Status of Plastic waste in India

• According to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) report 2018-19, 3.3 million metric tonnes of plastic waste was generated in India in 2018-19.
• The total municipal solid waste generation is 55-65 million tonnes; plastic waste is approximately 5-6 per cent of the total solid waste generated in the country.
• Goa has the highest per capita plastic waste generation at 60 grams per capita per day, which is nearly double of what Delhi generates (37 grams per capita per day).

Suggestion

Sustainable Alternatives: Economically affordable and ecologically viable alternatives which will not burden the resources needed and their prices will also come down with time and increase in demand.

• Need to promote alternatives like cotton, khadi bags and biodegradable plastics.
• More R&D (Research & Development) and finances for it, are needed to look for sustainably viable options.

Circular Economy: Countries must embrace circular and sustainable economic practices throughout the plastics value chain to reduce plastic pollution.

• A circular economy depends on reuse, sharing, repair, refurbishment, remanufacturing and recycling of resources to create a closed-loop system, minimising the use of resources, generation of waste, pollution and carbon emissions.
• Behavioural Change: Citizens have to bring behavioural change and contribute by not littering and helping in waste segregation and waste management.

Extended Producer Responsibility: At the policy level, the concept of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), already mentioned under the 2016 Rules, has to be promoted.

• EPR is a policy approach under which producers are given a significant responsibility – financial and/or physical – for the treatment or disposal of post-consumer products.