Page 9 - Plastics News May 2019

FROM THE EDITOR'S PEN

The Controlled Movement

t the recently held two-week meeting of UN-backed conventions in Geneva, Switzerland,
Athe governments of 187 countries have agreed to control the movement of Plastic waste
between national borders in an effort to curb the world's plastic crisis but the United States
was not among them. The US was not involved in the decision-making process, and as such
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wastes will require prior consent from receiving countries before they are traded, with the
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Although it sat out of the decision, the ruling will still apply to the United States when it
tries to trade plastic waste to virtually any country in the world. Although the European
Union is the world’s largest exporter of plastic waste, U.S. exports are the largest for a
single country. The US has been sending over 78 percent of its plastics waste (38.5 million
tons plastic waste it generated in 2018) to various countries around the world, including
China and Malaysia, but these countries have also restricted imports of Plastic waste across
its borders making it harder for leading exporter- the United States to ship unsorted plastic
to emerging Asian economies for disposal.
Mr. Rajiv B.Tolat
Apart from India, countries like Thailand and Vietnam have also stop imports of Plastic
waste. This would mean that US might have to re-work on recycling its domestic waste.
Their plastic waste may be out of sight, but in reality, it is just ending up in someone else’s
backyard and it’s high time US accepts this taking necessary remedial steps to stop their
share of Plastic Pollution .
Back home there is some good news as exporters of goods and services, as well as suppliers to
SEZ units, are likely to get GST refunds automatically from June as the revenue department
plans to introduce faceless scrutiny of refunds and faster claim settlement. Once implemented,
the time period for such refunds will come down to about a fortnight from months at present.
The revenue department and GST Network (GSTN) is working to make the process of seeking
tax refund by all exporters faceless by next month. It would make the process faster and
also help in eliminating fake refunds. The fully computerized tax refund in case of export
of services would be based on a comprehensively integrated GSTN system which connects
with RBI servers to track the receipt of payments and link them automatically with invoice
level information.
Tax refunds for inverted duty structure could also be copiously automated in future, however,
it would require GSTN system to be loaded with HSN-enabled invoice level information by every
vendor, so that only eligible tax credits could be processed without any human intercession
making it a yet another controlled movement.

Rajiv B.Tolat
Hon. Editor
publication@aipma.net

9 M a y 2 01 9 Plastics News