Page 4 - Plastics News May 2020

It's Time To Move On..

The Lockdown 4.0 has been a testing period and though it has been extended for
the betterment, there is still a scope for improvement. The extended lockdown
has helped to save over million lives but in doing so it's the poor implementation of
the guidelines that is adding to the woes of the general public; especially who are
not Techno-Savvy (having no access to smart phone) and are thus not able to fulfill
their financial needs / duties 'online' be it banking operations and / or paying
utility bills as well. Non-payment of bills leads to penalty adding to the financial
burden. It would be advisable for the government to address such issues and the
least they can do is to temporarily waive-off late fee charges / interest on bills.

Also, with the restrictions on number of essentials' shops in a lane/ geographical
area has added to the misery as most of the shopkeepers with the virtue of their
monopoly are able to exploit consumers with overcharging items of daily needs on
the pretext of artificial shortage being created. Moreover, with the limited 4 /5
hours time meant for sale the shops are chaotic with no respect to social
distancing there by leading to a possibility of spreading infection. There has to be
a planning that would bring some respite to the otherwise frustrated people who
are forced to stay at home.

In his speech, Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged of a total spending of Rs 20
lakh crore to weather the fallout of coronavirus pandemic is among the largest
economic stimulus package announced by nations around the world. Also the
focus on MSME's has been good to hear but one wonders how this will work as there
is no clarity over allocation of funds, interest that would be levied and the
modalities are changing almost every day. The Atma-Nirbhar stimulus is just a loan
to MSME's that has to be returned one fine day. Given this, how many MSME's
actually benefit from it remains to be seen.

The other biggest problem with the MSME's getting back on track is finding workers
as most of them migrated to their native places due to the corona virus-enforced
lockdown. The state government should draw a plan for orderly return of workers
so that industrial activities can be restarted in Maharashtra, where the lockdown
has been extended till May 31.

Amidst all these happenings Life Cycle Initiative released a new report on plastics
– 'Single-use plastic bags and their alternatives', that points out that reusable PE
bags have lower environmental impacts than single-use bags, but the results are
sensitive to usage rates for, the usage rates that make the reusable plastic bag a
better option from an environmental point of view varies. There are many such
observations and this report gives the scope for the Policy Makers to revisit their
actions on SUP.

MAY 2020 4 Plastics News