CHENNAI: Adopting a bottom-up approach, the TN government is planning to rope in ragpickers to fight plastic menace. Meanwhile, the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) has brought 37 companies under the ambit of Extended Producers Responsibility (EPR) on plastic packaging under the Plastic Waste Management Rules, 2016, for which guidelines were notified by the Centre.
Additional Chief Secretary to the Environment Department Supriya Sahu told TNIE, on the sidelines of a workshop on “EPR in Plastics and Packaging Waste in India” organised by GIZ and FICCI, that ragpickers played an important role in promoting the circular economy. “... It’s important to recognise the services of ragpickers, streamline the process, and incentivise them to ensure single-use plastics don’t end up in landfills.”
She said the work of enumerating the ragpickers at district-level would be given to a private agency. The idea is to make the informal sector a stakeholder and make the entire fight against plastic menace inclusive, while making big manufactures and corporates comply with EPR guidelines, she said.
TNPCB chairperson Jayanthi Murali said: “So far, 37 companies in TN came forward to comply with the EPR guidelines. District environmental engineers are directed to take every complaint filed in the compliance portal seriously and act upon it. A Plastic Waste Management Cell has been formed at TNPCB to implement the single-use plastic ban effectively in TN.”
Every State is mandated to implement the EPR guidelines coupled with prohibition of identified single-use plastic items, which have low utility and high littering potential, with effect from July 1, 2022. The guidelines allows slapping of environmental compensation based on the polluter-pays-principle on non-fulfilment of EPR targets by producers, importers, and brand owners.