India Quashes Idea of Ban on Single-Use Plastics

Fresh details on the much-awaited measures against plastic pollution due to be announced in October suggest that India won’t be banning single-use plastic after all.

The country’s industries were expecting a nationwide ban on single-use plastic was imminent. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in an Independence Day speech in August, had said that Oct. 2, celebrated as the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi, would mark a “significant step” toward making India “free” from single-use plastic.

A government source on Sept. 18, however, said no ban would be imposed in the foreseeable future due to the large number of jobs that would be lost.

News reports had said the government was set to impose a nationwide ban. But that was a misinterpretation, said an official of the National Institution for Transforming India, also called NITI Aayog, a government think tank.

The campaign would be entirely citizen-driven, the official said. “The focus is going to be on voluntary contribution from the public, to collect and incinerate 200,000 tonnes of plastic waste between Oct. 2 and 27.”

In addition, the Ministry of Railways and Air India will roll out a plan in October targeting items such as plastic cups and cutlery.

Industry Sees Threat

Industry leaders had called the rumored prospect of a ban “an existential threat.”

Amrinder Singh Arora, organizational secretary of the All India Plastic Industries Association, said that with India staring down the barrel of a recession, clamping down on single-use plastic would leave tens of millions of people jobless, including the hundreds of thousands of informal workers that support the nation’s waste management system.

But even without a ban, Arora said, “the industry is being harassed by pollution control bodies, and local bodies are targeting small shops for selling plastic wrapped items.”

He said that the government approach is ineffective and cripples the industry for the sake of making a political statement in front of the international community.

The reality, he said, is that “the government has high stakes in companies that produce hazardous plastics, but at the same time it penalizes private businesses operating in the same space.”

Mostly Single-Use Plastic

India produced an estimated 2,280 metric tons per year of plastic waste in 2017 and 2018.

About 60% of the country’s plastic is recycled, according to a fact sheet from the Energy and Resources Institute in Delhi. Of the total plastic manufactured in India, around 43% is used for packaging purpose, and most is single-use.

Swati Singh Sambyal, an environmental governance expert with the Centre for Science and Environment in Delhi, said that the new measures expected in October are “very hollow” and “more noise” than anything else.

She said that the problem should be tackled step by step. The plan should include a selective ban of the most polluting items such as plastic cutlery, plates and cups, and it should strengthen waste management across the country and search for feasible alternatives to plastic.

Industries should be given time to adjust to the change and receive rebates when deciding to move away from the business as usual, she added.

Breaking free of single-use plastic will require innovation, said David Azoulay, an environmental health program director in Geneva with the nonprofit law firm Center for International Environmental Law.

The goal “represents a great opportunity for Indian industry to position itself on what will surely be a market of the future,” he said.