Page 7 - Plastics News July 2020

Plastics and Sustainability Can go Hand-in-Hand
You may be exhausted but the covid-19 pandemic is barely getting started.
Covid-19 is here to stay. The world is working out how to live with it and People
will have to change their behavior.
However amidst the fight against the deadly virus the environmentalist
brigade is busy shouting that the Covid-19 has led to a pandemic of plastic
pollution. God forbidden had it not been the plastic one wonders what could
have been the number of affected / deceased. One needs to understand the
fact; Plastics has been a savior during the pandemic world over and also
plastics manufactures world over, including Indian counterparts are serious
and wary about the increasing pollution.
Plastic waste began to rise with personal protective equipment (PPE) be it
masks/ shields, hand gloves being discarded carelessly and thus single-use
plastic was making news for all the wrong reasons.
It's the problem of waste management that needs to be regulated and the
Plastic Industry has always stood firmly for it. Apart from working towards
carrying (Plastics) recycling measures across the country the industry has also
been committed towards sustainability and are determined, using recycled
plastics for the betterment.

The plastic-made items are used to protect every individual against the corona
virus and are necessary as well like the cloth masks that have increasingly been
encouraged for common use. These are essential short-term needs for health,
sanitation and other frontline workers as preventive measures against the
corona virus.

Those who think that the national, as well as the global momentum for plastic
waste management, has been seriously disrupted are wrong. Plastics is not the
problem, our handling of it is. Although plastic grocery bags are completely
recyclable littering is the problem as these types of bags are so lightweight
that they are easily carried long distances by the wind and thus these Single-
use plastic bags are a very visible sign of pollution. Plastic bags have received
an undeserved bad reputation, Single-use plastic bags are 100% recyclable,
and according to an estimate around 80%–90% of people world over reuse and
repurpose these bags.
As rightly said by these environment enthusiasts we need a tectonic shift in the
behaviors of consumers. We need consumers to care about their role in the
plastic waste value chain by not littering. They can follow the principle of
Reuse, Recycle and Repurpose for, refusing (and /or a ban) is not the solution.

July 2020 7 Plastics News