HYDERABAD: As the government celebrates World Environment Day on Tuesday, it can ponder over this scary fact: of the total amount of plastic waste generated by Hyderabad in a year, only a little more than a day’s waste gets recycled. It can also consider the idea of banning all kinds of low-density polyethylene (LDPE) plastics and plastic carry bags regardless of their thickness. LDPE is a kind of thin single-use plastic that one must have often seen being used as a packaging material.
As per the figures of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) made available at its recent council meeting, of the 5,000 tonnes of solid waste generated in the city everyday, 450 to 500 tonnes is plastic. However, as per figures obtained by Express, Ramky Enviro Engineers, which manages municipal solid waste in the city, only about 650 tonnes of plastic waste was recycled in the last one year.
Ramky officials blamed it on the fact that most of the plastic waste that ends up with them belongs to LDPE category, which cannot be recycled, apart from lack of segregation of plastic from organic waste from the households. Sreenivasan, programme head of Plastic Waste Recycling, Ramky Enviro Engineers, said, “Polypropylene (PP), high density polyethylene (HDPE) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) are the kinds of plastic which can be recycled. They are of good quality and are used in making buckets,” he said.
Plastic Park to come up soon: KTR
Industries Minister KT Rama Rao on Monday announced launching of a Plastic Park soon. He said: “Plastic which is being banned and plastic which will be manufactured through plastic park are different. Both are for two different causes and purposes.’’
“Most of the plastic that reaches Jawahar Nagar landfill along with other solid waste are either plastic carry bags or LDPE plastic which cannot be recycled. The only way to dispose them is through plastic waste-to-fuel plant or through incineration in cement plants. Even cement plants sometimes do not show interest because the carry bags are usually wet.” Hyderabad does not have any major plastic waste-to-fuel plant.
“The waste that reaches Jawahar Nagar is all mixed up. Plastic has to be segregated from organic waste for recycling. Rag-pickers rummage through landfill to collect plastic and are paid for what they collect.
As they are paid better for collecting plastic that can be recycled, they usually ignore LDPE and also plastic carry bags,” Sreenivasan said.
Arun Ravi, having experience in plastic waste recycling, who pursued a course in Plastics Processing and Testing from Central Institute of Plastics Engineering and Technology, said, “Plastic is present in almost everything we use and its usage will continue. There is need to ban plastic with thickness less than 50 microns and increase capacity of plastic recycling units.”