Plastic waste: Managed on paper, burnt in reality

For years, residents of a gated villa community on Bengaluru’s northeastern fringe have been exposed to smoke from plastic burning. A plastic shredder unit nearby burns low-value plastic because it is not economically viable to recycle it, and there is little oversight or accountability. 

A ‘factory’ with no signage or name was identified by residents as the culprit. Repeated complaints to authorities failed to resolve the issue, but instead drew threats from vested interests, leaving residents afraid to speak out. 

Plastic burning began on most days early in the morning, sometimes between 3 and 4 am. A recent major fire at the unit was described as a “cylinder blast,” and fire services were alerted only after residents intervened. 

“Cylinder blast means we would hear it. We knew they were lying,” a resident who preferred anonymity told DH. 

“This has become a norm. We have children, and we are worried about our health with constant inhalation of burnt plastic,” says the resident. The burning continues, while the complaints go unheard. 

This is the state of plastic waste management in Bengaluru, despite it being the capital of Karnataka and having well-established municipal systems and guidelines in place. One can only imagine what is happening in tier-2 cities and villages, where consumerism and plastic use have permeated, yet no systems are in place to handle plastic waste.

A recent study by researchers from the Divecha Centre for Climate Change at the Indian Institute of Science and the Vellore Institute of Technology confirms this. It detected microplastics in drinking water drawn from 10 of 11 sampled borewells, at depths ranging from 60 to over 100 metres, across Tumakuru, Ballari, Raichur, Chikkaballapur, Koppal and Kolar. Residents in affected villages are estimated to ingest about 1,100 microplastic particles annually through drinking water alone, according to the study, placing them at significant health risk.

India has had plastic waste management rules, but they have largely remained on paper, as the recycling system accepts only high-value plastic and there are no systems in place to handle lightweight, low-value plastic. 

Aiming to reduce the use of new plastic, the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change notified the Plastic Waste Management (Amendment) Rules, 2026 on March 31. The amendment mandates that rigid plastic packaging must now contain at least 30% recycled material in 2025–26, rising to 60 per cent by 2028–29. In addition, the new plastic can now, in theory, be tracked from source to shelf.  

Companies can carry forward unmet targets for up to three years. They can also buy recycling credits instead of managing their own waste. The rules address organised, branded plastic. The rest — low-value scraps, thermocol and multi-layered wrappers that no recycler will touch — is classified for ‘end-of-life’ disposal, which essentially means incineration.

“Multilayer plastic packaging has no recycling facility. It can only be treated with end-of-life facilities (incinerators),” says an official from Bengaluru Solid Waste Management Limited (BSWML) that handles waste in the metropolis of Bengaluru.  

In the city, such low-value plastic is used as refuse-derived fuel (RDF) and sent to a waste-to-energy plant in Bidadi, where it is burnt. Some of it was also sent to a cement factory, where it is used in cement production, but it also involved transportation costs. Though the arrangement is no longer functional, the BSWML received an EPR credit ranging from Rs 70 lakh to Rs 1.8 crore for co-processing 18,625 tonnes of plastic waste.  

This system is set to continue under the new rules. However, the story across the rest of Karnataka is starkly different, with the system breaking down right from the stage of waste collection.

Reality in districts

The loud jingles played every morning from garbage-collecting tippers operated by the Hubballi-Dharwad Mahanagara Palike convey a clear message about segregating waste into dry and wet categories. Yet, Sandeep (name changed), a pourakarmika in Vidya Nagar, Hubballi, collects waste from houses and dumps it into the same compartment of the tipper.

He says, “A few houses might segregate their waste. But a majority do not. Due to a lack of space in the tipper, we end up mixing all the waste together.”

Though the twin cities’ civic body is attempting to streamline solid waste disposal, tonnes of mixed waste is dumped at the landfill on Karwar Road on the city outskirts every day. Residents living near the dump yard often complain of foul smell and breathing difficulties, especially when mixed waste containing plastic catches fire — something that happens quite frequently. 

Like most civic bodies in Karnataka, Hubballi relies on unorganised ragpickers to collect plastic waste. The limited quantity of plastic collected or segregated at waste compactors is either sold to cement factories or scrap dealers. “Only 10% of the total plastic waste generated in the twin cities is segregated and sold to dealers for recycling. The rest is stacked at the dump yard,” says an operator at a compactor unit.

Aarthi Sachdeva, Lead Knowledge Development at Saahas, a Bengaluru-based NGO working on sustainable solid waste management and source segregation, says the new amendments to the Plastic Waste Management Rules are based on Circular Economy principles but are largely a play of words until there is a viable resource recovery ecosystem for all categories of plastics. In the current format, they do not address the core issue of plastic waste management on the ground.

“We already have mechanisms to address recyclable plastic, and even without additional incentives, that will be taken care of because there is an existing revenue model,” she says. According to her, the amendments fail to address the core problem: non-recyclable plastic.

“The existing guidelines have not been able to create a viable revenue stream for non-recyclable plastics. Unless collecting and processing low value plastics becomes a reliable source of income, scientific disposal will remain impossible,” she says.

“Urban local bodies have the prerogative to manage door-to-door collection and aggregation of waste under Solid Waste Management Rules. They cannot be burdened with finding solutions for wicked problems of waste,” she adds.

Collection remains a challenge 

The Plastic Waste Management (Amendment) Rules, 2026, significantly strengthen the role of civic bodies by making them central to implementation, monitoring and enforcement at city, taluk and gram panchayat levels.

Earlier, local bodies were the primary agencies responsible for the collection, segregation and recycling of plastic waste. However, the 2026 amendments, which were gazetted on March 31, add the responsibility of ensuring that companies adhere to their Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) obligations.

Multiple Zilla Panchayat (ZP) CEOs told DH that while the new rules are “perfect” on paper, implementation remains a major challenge. Most local bodies are financially constrained and lack adequate human resources and infrastructure to address solid waste management, including plastic.

The state government has entrusted the collection of solid waste to women-led self-help groups (SHGs). “For the initial six months, the state government provides remuneration to the SHGs. After that, each gram panchayat must generate funds to pay the salaries of the tipper driver, waste collectors and coordinators. As the collection of recyclable plastic is very low, gram panchayats are unable to generate sufficient revenue to sustain solid waste operations,” said Davangere ZP CEO Gitte Madhav Vitthal Rao. He added that several gram panchayats across the state have not cleared bills for the past six months.

Thirthahalli Executive Officer Shaila N said that solid waste collection is particularly challenging in the Malnad region, where gram panchayats and hamlets are located in remote areas. “Wet waste is not a major issue here, as people use it to make manure. But solid waste, especially plastic, is difficult both to collect and dispose of,” she said.

She added that most gram panchayats do not generate enough recyclable plastic to attract regular visits from dealers, resulting in waste accumulating at dump yards.

Thus, despite meetings and workshops by the authorities on managing plastic waste, the gap between theoretical training and on-the-ground implementation remains wide.

Another challenge is the emphasis on Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) and the role of local bodies. Officials point out that while it is relatively easier to collect fees from or penalise multinational companies and large brands for non-compliance, implementing EPR for smaller or unbranded producers remains a major challenge. 

“In rural areas, products from non-branded companies or cottage industries are more common. Tracing such producers is difficult. So how can we penalise them or ensure they fulfil their EPR obligations?” asked another ZP CEO.

Plastic burning, formalised 

A recent plastic waste fire in Rampura northeast Bengaluru released toxic fumes into the air with residents blaming weak regulatory enforcement for recurring incidents. 

If implemented properly, with the right incentives for stakeholders, the Rules can stop the open burning of plastic. But burning is now considered a valid method of disposal and can generate EPR credits equivalent to those earned through recycling plastic.

The Rules have included the use of plastic waste in waste-to-oil conversion, road construction, co-processing in cement and steel industries and energy recovery at waste-to-energy plants (burning) under the ‘end-of-life disposal’ category. 

With 2026 Rules, we have institutionalised a system of burning plastic — read incineration — as a valid compliance,” says Pinky Chandran, an independent researcher.

She observes that plastic EPR in India is moving towards a market-based governance framework, and is increasingly becoming merely a financial compliance exercise. While the 2016 Rules emphasised the ‘polluter pays’ principle and strengthened plastic waste management through source segregation, recycling and the integration of waste pickers and recyclers into collection, the 2022 amendment shifted the architecture towards a financial compliance mechanism.

“The current system has been designed as a credit market. ‘Buy more’ has become the mantra in order to achieve compliance,” she says.

“If the goal was actual circularity, the push should be towards PIBOs collecting their own waste, by supporting dry waste collection centres or material recovery facilities through capex and opex, paying the true market rates to waste pickers or through financial obligations of supporting the municipalities,” she adds. “We also need to compulsorily redesign packaging and invest in reuse systems,” she says.