CHENNAI: The countdown has begun, to bid farewell to single-use plastic products in the State. The State government is gearing up to keep a promise it made as early as in June — to “gift a plastic-free State to future generations” starting January 2019. Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami will chair a high-level meeting this week to decide on some of the key issues in this regard.
There are a bunch of applications pending with the government, seeking exemption from the ban. This includes a request from the State-owned Tamil Nadu Newsprint and Papers Limited (TNPL), which has written to the Environment and Forests Department seeking an exemption for plastic-coated paper cups from the purview of the ban which will come into effect on January 1.
Express had earlier reported about TNPL’s resistance. Sources in Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board say that the government is yet to decide on the requests sent by TNPL and several other companies. “It’s a policy decision and a final call on their requests will be taken at the high-level meeting to be held this week,” they say.
TNPL is one of the major players in the paper cups market. It manufactures and markets about 60,000 tonnes of stock for paper cups in a year. Although the actual stock produced by TNPL does not have any plastic, a thin film of food grade low-density polyethene is added by paper cup converter units to create a liquid barrier before it’s sold for end use.
TNPL also has an in-house LDPE film coating unit, operations of which have been outsourced. This unit processes a very small quantity of the cup stock and sells it as ‘coated cup stock’ for conversion as paper cups. “Out of 5,000 tonnes per month produced, about 2,000 tonnes is marketed in Tamil Nadu, which has a market volume of about 12,000 tonnes per month,” TNPL managing director S Sivashanmugaraja has said in his letter. “Therefore, the ban will directly impact the sale of TNPL.”
He also added that plastic accounts for just 5 per cent of the finished product and the remaining 95 per cent is paper, which is “recyclable, biodegradable and eco-friendly.”
‘Paper cups 5% plastic, 95% paper’
TNPL is one of the major players in the paper cups market. It manufactures and markets about 60,000 tonnes of stock for paper cups in a year. Although the actual stock produced by TNPL does not have any plastic, a thin film of food grade low-density polyethene is added by paper cup converter units to create a liquid barrier before it’s sold for end use. TNPL managing director S Sivashanmugaraja said that plastic accounts for just 5 per cent of the finished product and the remaining 95 per cent is paper, which is “recyclable, biodegradable and totally eco-friendly.”
