Page 106 - Plastics News December 2019

iN thE NEws

Ministry preparing National Four cities selected for the PWM

Environmental Plan Centre project

he Union environment ministry is preparing a National urat city, the economical
TEnvironmental Plan, which will be ready by January Scapital of Gujarat, will
2020, and will address issues related to waste management soon get a Plastic Waste
and pollution. “We are coming up with two national plans. Management Centre, funded
While one is the National Action Plan for Climate Change, by the Central government.
the other is the National Environmental Plan (NEP). NEP The city has been selected for
will focus more on solid waste management — plastic and the project along with Patna,
biomedical waste among others. Districts in all states have Bengaluru and Varanasi. The
been asked to come up with district environmental plans. Central government will fund
We have already received plans from 102 districts,” said Rs 6 crore each to the four
CK Mishra, Union environment secretary. What makes the cities to develop Plastic Waste Management Centres.
upcoming plan unique is that this will be the first national A two-member team from the Central Institute of
environmental plan with a bottom-up approach, with Plastic Engineering and Technology (CIPET) visited Surat
inputs coming from the districts. Experts have welcomed
this approach. “Considering that cities across India are and checked the status of disposal and recycling of
struggling with pollution concerning air, water, sanitation plastic waste by the Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC).
and waste, among others, the formulation of a national The team also held a meeting with Surat municipal
environmental plan is a good move. Also, the bottom-up commissioner Banchhanidhi Pani, city engineer Bharat
approach by taking inputs from district authorities will Dalal, environmental engineer Jwalant Naik, and solid
aim for more localised action and area-specific pollution and liquid waste department officials.The team also
abatement approaches,” said Swati Singh Sambyal, visited the plastic waste recycling plant run under
programme manager of environmental governance Public Private Partnership (PPP) since 2017 by ECO
Vision and SMC, where over 30 tonnes of plastic waste
is recycled daily, said SMC city engineer Bharat Dalal.
Around 180 metric tonnes of plastic waste is collected
by the SMC from the city daily, he said. “One acre
of land is required for developing the plastic waste
management centre and the SMC will have to bear
the construction costs while the CIPET will provide
machineries and other equipment for recycling and
disposal of plastic waste. The CIPET team will operate
the centre while the Central govenrment will give a
grant of Rs 6 crore for the project,” said Dalal. SMC
(municipal solid waste) at the Centre for Science and environmental engineer Jwalant Naik said, “At this
Environment in Delhi. The Central Pollution Control Board centre, research work on plastic recycling and disposal
(CPCB) has directed magistrates (DM) of all districts across will also be done. Separate machines will be installed
India to prepare District Environment Plans (DEMs). These for crushing plastic items.” An awareness programme
DEMs will be compiled to prepare State Environmental will also be conducted for citizens on disposal of daily
Plans, which in turn will be put together to prepare the use plastic items, its impact on the environment and
National Environmental Plan. CPCB has developed a model reusing plastic. GPCB realised that a scientific solution
that DMs may use for preparing DEMs. While the state
environment plans are likely to be finalised by the end to the problem would have to be developed. One aspect
of December and monitored by the chief secretaries of which was evident to them was that the plastic waste
the respective states, the national plan is expected to be had very high calorific value much higher than coal.This
compiled under the supervision of the Union environment fact made the GPCB management think in the direction
secretary and chairman of CPCB by January. of utilising the plastic waste as an alternative to energy.

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