Page 9 - Plastics News June 2021

FROM THE EDITOR'S PEN

The Plastics’Challenge

With the Environment Day and Ocean Day celebrated world over during the month one could
hear and read many a celebrities talking about disadvantages or so to say elaborating on the
harmful effects of Plastics. I wonder how could one easily overlook the fact that Plastics has
been the savior during the worst ever pandemic of the century.

Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar announced and launched the “India Plastic
Challenge-Hackathon 2021” during one such event to spur innovation and entrepreneurship
in area of tackling plastic waste pollution and elimination of single use plastic.The “India
Plastic Challenge-Hackathon 2021” as we are told, is a unique competition calling upon start-
ups/entrepreneurs and students of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to develop innovative
solutions to mitigate plastic pollution and develop alternatives to single use plastics. According
to him India is taking all steps to ensure that the country becomes free of single-use plastic
by 2022.
To quote the minister “Plastic per se is not a problem, it’s the uncollected plastic waste that’s
the problem. And their lies the problem – its littering, that’s the problem! We have discussed
this time and again and in a way we are vindicated.
Lets for the sake of argument discuss why bans haven’t worked and can’t work. The foremost Mr. Rajiv B.Tolat
factor is the lack of alternatives to SUPs and the government’s failure in promoting them.
Despite the industry agreeing to support government, so far, the thinking within the government
has been that once the ban is enforced, alternatives would emerge to fill the gap. But this has
not happened simply because there is no supportive infrastructure and incentive to produce
alternatives in volume.
Alternatives have remained a niche business as the government never had a policy to
mainstream them.
The unrealistic time frame for phasing out these products is the second important factor for
the failure. Bans have been imposed either immediately or within few months, providing little
time to the industry and users to adapt.

Other important factor is an overreliance on bans while ignoring other instruments such as fiscal
incentives and disincentives, certification and labelling, and extended producer responsibility.
With the new draft Plastic Waste Management (Amendment) Rules, 2021, published just before
the second wave of the pandemic hit the country, it added to worse however, this time as
well the story remains the same.

Experience worldwide shows that a total ban on widely-used products requires an incremental
approach to change the economy and public behaviour. This is precisely the reason why
European countries have given themselves at least a decade to eliminate SUPs. We, on the
other hand, want to do it in months !

Our propensity to rely only on command and control to fix environmental problems is taking
us nowhere. Environment ministry must carefully examine past successes and failures before
enacting another law to ban SUPs else the industry might be forced to follow the Florida
model- Banning the Ban!
Rajiv B.Tolat
Hon. Editor
publication@aipma.net

9 June 2021 Plastics News