Plastic ban: Mumbai gets it wrong

Curbs on plastics have been sometime in coming. On paper, as many as 25 states have already banned plastic in some form, over the last 20 years. But Maharashtra is one of the first few states, after tiny Sikkim, to actually implement a rather stringent ban on plastics. But the mayhem in Mumbai since the announcement of the ban clearly demonstrates that this is no way to implement an environment-friendly move.

The Maharashtra Plastic and Thermocol Products (Manufacture, Usage, Sale, Transport, Handling and Storage) Notification, 2018, which came about in late March, talks tough. It restricts manufacturing, usage, storage, distribution, wholesale and retail sale, import and transportation of all kinds of plastic bags, disposable cutlery, straws, non-woven polypropylene bags, plastic sheets or pouches and plastic films in Maharashtra. But the state government has repeatedly changed the rules of the game since then. Unrealistically, only one month was given for enforcing the ban initially. Within a week, though, the government without explanation watered it down. Then, rules were relaxed for wholesalers and retailers. Following high-level lobbying, reportedly by multi-national companies and plastics firms, the state government allowed e-commerce firms three months’ time to make the shift. Low-grade plastic bottles have been allowed to stay in the market if the manufacturers agree to offer buyback and recycle options. Branded packaging could slip through. But if the plastics used by small players such as street vendors and neighbourhood shops pollute, don’t those from the bigger players do likewise? The industry has been left confused; citizens don’t know when they are violating the ban, when they are not.

Plastics have been called a global problem. No less than the UN Secretary-General António Guterres made an appeal on June 5, World Environment Day, warning the planet that by 2050, “there could be more plastic in the ocean than fish”. India, in fact, played host to the ‘Beat Plastic Pollution’ campaign this time and committed to completely eliminating single-use plastics across the country by 2022. India’s “low” per capita consumption, said to be 11 kilos of plastics per head, is no excuse for not taking action. Our cities are getting flooded, rivers choked, and our cattle ingesting that which was never meant to be food. Plastics have hugely added to the garbage woes of both urban and rural India. But the ‘how’ of regulating plastics is more crucial than for states to just take action for the sake of scoring brownie points for being the first to effect a ban. Maharashtra is currently showing how wrong things can go when governments ignore that.