KOCHI: Even as the Central Government relaxes its earlier stand of going ahead with an outright ban on single-use plastic and plans to eliminate it over several phases, experts question the viability of the entire exercise. They even question the sincerity of the decision and term it as one that has been made at the spur of the moment. TNSE talks to environmentalists and experts about the issue.
According to Jose Joseph Moonjely, environmentalist and waste management expert, when a ban is introduced, those who formulate the rules need to weigh all the facts. “Policies can’t be made at one’s whims and fancies. The government said ban single-use plastics. But did they ever wait to consider how to go about it? Asking a trader to stop keeping and giving plastic carry bags to their customers doesn’t help,” he said.
The very fact that everything at a grocer’s shop or the supermarket comes packaged in single-use plastics defeats the entire exercise, he said. According to him, the best way to go about eliminating plastics is to stop manufacturing it. “Stop both manufacturing and trading of plastics,” he said.
The very fact that the governments are the ones which give licence and provide all infrastructural facilities to plastic manufacturing units, makes them powerful enough to pull the plug, he added.
“They won’t do it,” he said. As of now, the Central Government has already eliminated pet bottles from its earlier list, said Jose. “The reason, they haven’t found an alternative! A ban without an alternative will never work,” he said. “Everything is a sham. Recently, I went to a restaurant and ordered a takeaway. The restaurant claimed to be a plastic-free place, but when my order was delivered it came packaged in tinfoil. The restaurant had parcelled the vada in paper, well... till that step it could be said to be environment-friendly. But what they did next was anti-environmental. The parcel came packaged in a tinfoil,” said Jose.
Tinfoil is not environment-friendly! he added. “The restaurant could have packed the vada in a banana leaf and the parcelled it in a paper,” he said. According to him, the mantra puts the onus on reduce rather than reuse and recycle. The same view was espoused by Anand M, assistant professor, School of Environmental Studies, Cusat.
According to him, instead of recycling and reusing if we want to eliminate the menace of plastics, everyone needs to reduce usage. “There is a limit to reusing carry bags or pet bottles or any other plastic product. It will ultimately end up either in a landfill or the water bodies,” said Anand. According to him, there is a limit to recycling plastic items.
“We are only extending the life cycle of the plastic item. But ultimately, after maybe 50 years or so, it will end up either in a landfill or finally the oceans,” he said. According to him, all the pet bottles and other plastic items that end up in the rivers, flow out to the oceans and end up accumulating in the Pacific. “The ocean currents flow in such a manner that all the garbage that we dump in the rivers end up in the Pacific,” he added. So the only thing that can be done is to forego plastic in all its forms, said both Jose and Anand.
As of now, there still is time available for people to come up with alternatives to conventional plastic products.
According to K Rajesh, centre-in-charge, Central Institute of Plastics Engineering and Technology (CIPET:IPT), the hi-power committee set up by the Central Government is yet to submit its report regarding the items that need to be banned. “Besides the pet bottles, carry bags with thickness above 50 microns have been given a short lease of life,” he said. Rajesh said technology is available to produce bio-degradable plastics.
“The only thing that needs to be done is for the people to adopt and implement it,” he added.