Looking beyond the Single-Use Plastic (SUP) ban in India from July 1, 2022
Consumers must take the SUP ban nudge to stop using or recycling other SUPs voluntarily
History: The Government of India (GoI)’s Plastic Waste Management Rules of 2016 prohibited SUP items of low utility and high littering potential in India. After that, in February 2022, GoI’s Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change (MoEFCC) released guidelines on the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for plastic packaging through the Plastic Waste Management (Amendment) Rules, 2022. As per those guidelines, producers, importers, and brand owners are responsible for the collection and environmentally sustainable management of their products’ plastic packaging.
Plastic Waste Management (Amendment) Rules, 2021: As per the amended rules, the manufacture, import, stocking, distribution, sale, and use of the following single-use plastic, including polystyrene and expanded polystyrene, is prohibited from July 1, 2022.
Earbuds with plastic sticks, plastic sticks for balloons, plastic flags, candy sticks, ice-cream sticks, and polystyrene for decoration.
Plates, cups, glasses, cutlery such as forks, spoons, knives, straws, trays, wrapping or packing films around sweet boxes, invitation cards, cigarette packets, plastic or PVC banners less than 100 micron, stirrers.
What is a SUP, and why is India banning them?
A SUP is a disposable plastic product like water bottles, straws, cups, and other items used only once, after which consumers discard them. SUPs are popular because they are inexpensive, but as they are plastic, they do not degrade and remain in the environment for long.
Does the ban include all SUPs? Like other countries that have banned SUPs, India has identified 22 SUPs for a ban. However, common SUPs like soft drink and mineral water bottles (of PET) and multi-layered packaging (MLP) do not come under the Indian SUP ban though they are also the items that commonly litter cities and the countryside.
Though GoI defined single-use plastic in its August 12, 2021 notification as “plastic items intended to be used once for the same purpose before being disposed of or recycled,” it has chosen not to ban PET bottles and MLP in its July 1, 2022 ban.
GoI identified a handful of problematic plastics of low utility and high littering potential from the bucket of SUP products and allowed the user industry a reasonable time to phase them out. Plastic carry bags are still allowed for citizen use though the regulation calls for bags of thickness higher than 75 microns until December 31, 2022, and more than 120 microns after that date.
GoI has let Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) banners be available if their thickness is not less than 100 microns.
Consumers have an important role in reducing plastic pollution by refusing the use of plastic carry bags, including those allowed by the government, consciously consuming and segregating the solid waste they generate in their homes. Consumer action will reduce plastic waste generation and help divert plastic waste from landfills to waste handling facilities that recycle or incinerate such waste.
Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR): Product manufacturers using MLP are responsible for collecting and reprocessing MLP, with each brand having targets for such recycling. However, citizens do not hold their FMCG brands accountable for MLP collection and recycling due to poor consumer awareness. As a result, India finds MLP the most common litter as it is light, windblown, and moves with rainwater but remains in the environment for a long time without degrading.
How can you face the SUP ban?
Earbuds: Doctors don’t recommend using earbuds which, rather than cleaning ears, push the natural ear wax deeper inside the ear and can lead to blocked ears and hearing. Earbuds are most easy not to use.
Celebrate wisely: You can easily avoid plastic sticks for balloons, plastic flags, and polystyrene beads by celebrating without them. Balloons are not biodegradable, pollute soil and water, and are thus avoidable. Flags are not compulsory for national day celebrations, and polystyrene beads get mixed up with food and do not degrade in the environment.
Reduce takeaway food and use containers and cutlery: Takeaway food is a major polluter as consumers may not recycle its packaging. Also, consumers may not properly recycle or dispose of the containers and plastic cutlery. In India, till a few years ago, it was common for people to ask restaurants to take away food in the customer’s containers. However, many people have restarted their practice and asked eateries to pack food in containers the customer carries to the eateries. In addition, carrying spoons and forks on travel or while going out helps to avoid touching food by using steel cutlery.
Stop consuming bottled water and beverages: Bottled water is no better than other drinking water. Don’t you wonder why a restaurant sells bottled water as they use tap water for cooking? Does it mean they don’t trust their kitchen water and promote bottled water? Also, bottled water has microplastics from the bottle manufacturing process that precedes filling the bottle with water. The less said, the better about aerated beverages which are sugar-laden and thus a health hazard. Asking for regular drinking water and avoiding carbonated drinks reduces the generation of PET beverage bottles.
What more can you do to make manufacturers assume their EPR? The SUPs banned by the GoI are a tiny fraction of those in use. There are estimates that the current ban will reduce 2.8 lakh MT of SUPs from a total of 3.6 million MT of plastics in India annually. However, banning SUPs is unlikely to make India cleaner, and the focus must be on other SUPs that GoI has still not banned.
Each home and community must collect SUPs such as MLPs, PET bottles, and grocery bags to facilitate recycling by the FMCG or retailer. After that, by tying up with NGOs, citizens can periodically send such collected plastic for recycling or incineration. Rustomjee Urbania residents are already recycling their waste through Recycled Earth since 2018.
FMCGs generate enormous consumer profits, and the latter must make the former accountable to the product packaging. Indian FMCGs have not been actively pursuing the collection and safe disposal of their product MLP sachets. When consumers ask to collect their used MLP, they may not initially respond but are legally bound to account for their packaging waste. In time, either singly or jointly, FMCGs will facilitate community collection of MLPs and dispose of such waste through recycling or incineration.
Single-use plastics are a good example of frivolous products that consumers find easy to use but create an enormous environmental challenge by persisting in the biosphere and entering life through the air, water, and food.
Indian consumers have no choice about SUPs GoI has banned but must also focus on the other SUPs like PET bottles and MLPs, which are a common and major part of street litter. By simple behavioral changes and forcing FMCG brands to assume real EPR, it will be possible to reduce plastic pollution.