Can Plastic Ban actually save us from the inevitable disaster?

A kid wakes up in the morning hoping for something new to happen. He walks out of his slum, grabs his thela (cart), and heads for the landfills. When the city produces 10,000 tons of garbage every day, that kid is one of the 200,000 ragpickers who work at the filth mountain. They face the methane and other dangerous compounds from the decomposing waste, wild canines, sickness, and the foul stink to recycle nearly a fifth of the city’s rubbish despite not being recognized as sanitation workers.

 

Consider doing all of that for 500 rupees, or $7 per day. Even that sad apology for a living is about to vanish as India prepares to implement a ban on single-use plastics, which are used to make items such as earbuds, lollipop sticks, polystyrene packets, plates, cups, spoons, packaging wraps, cigarette packs, and stirrers, among other items of daily use that populate our lives, beginning July 1.

 

But will avoiding Plastic actually help solve the problem? According to the Ministry of Environment in India, Forest, and Climate Change, it will no longer be possible to manufacture, import, stock, distribute, sell, or use these single-use plastic items because they have “poor utility and high littering potential.” Penalties can range from a $1,000 fine to a maximum of five years in prison. The country’s 50,000 plastic manufacturing facilities—the majority of which are small and medium-sized businesses that collectively employ approximately 400,000 people—as well as consumer corporations that rely on plastic for their products have a much more positive perspective, albeit it is still frightening. Leading beverage manufacturers, for instance, have been lobbying with the government to delay the ban because they are finding it difficult to replace the plastic straws that come with their drink goods. Single use plastic is a type of disposable plastic found in items like water bottles, straws, cups, and other items that can only be used once before being thrown away. Due of their affordability, companies are more likely to produce single-use plastics.

 

Placing a ban on plastics may have both favorable and unfavorable effects. The reduction of single-use plastics, which results in less plastic entering the environment, is one of the ban’s beneficial effects. Another benefit is the chance to switch to more ecologically friendly alternatives that are more readily available and more reasonably priced. This is important. Bans may be followed by enforcement measures, which may cost money from the relevant authorities, or they may result in the extension of the ban to include imports of certain products. If single-use plastics are prohibited but there are no practical alternatives, there is a chance that illegal markets will develop.

We should be wary of options that claim to be recyclable or reusable. Typically, these alternatives are compostable or biodegradable in industrial facilities at extremely high temperatures that are difficult to achieve in normal environments. Furthermore, because they are not plastic, they cannot be recycled, and placing them in the wrong waste stream (for example, with recyclable items) can distort the composting process by sending all recyclable items to landfill space instead of just grouping out all the non-recyclable item.

 

The largest change we would have to make, even if the plastic ban is successful, would be to reexamine our disposable society. We would have to alter not only how we consume goods like food and clothing but also how they are produced like phones and washing machines. Instead of making things compatible and more standardized so that they may be replaced and repaired, we’re too ready to acquire something cheap and disposable. That ideology has to be changed.