Plastic ban: Greens for strict enforcement in West Bengal
Times of India | 2 January 2023
KOLKATA: From Sunday, plastic carry-bags of less than 120-micron thickness are forbidden across the country. However, the city, and the rest of the state, had failed to even implement the ban on single-use plastic (SUP), which is ubiquitous across all major retail markets here. The thinner plastic bags, which are difficult to recycle and reuse, are choking the drainage systems, making river beds and sea beds dead zones and entering our food chain.
Plastic carry bags with a thickness of less than 120 microns are now illegal to manufacture, import, stock, distribute, sell, and use, according to the Plastic Waste Management Amendment Rules, 2021. Activists, however, felt that unless there is strict enforcement, this rule could go the way of the ban on SUP thinner than 75 microns. Despite the ban, manufacturing of single-use plastic (SUP) could not be stopped in Bengal. Even though the state PCB issued a notice to all plastic bag manufacturers against the production of SUP and those below 75 microns, to stop it at source, the manufacturers resumed production after a gap, finding no vigil or enforcement against such production.
At the very beginning of the announcement of the ban on SUP, though, there had been a tremendous response among traders and buyers. "I saw traders had stopped supplying plastic carry bags. Customers also revived their habit of bringing cloth or nylon bags to the markets. The SUP disappeared from the markets. People who did not bring bags had to buy thicker plastic bags for Rs 5-Rs 10. But the roar of the KMC turned out to be a whimper after a month, with no enforcement in place. And the supply line of SUP was again left wide open," said Somini Sen Dua, founder, Mrittika Earthly Talks, which champions sustainable living.
"It is sad that we have failed to rein in the production of the thinner plastic bags at the source. Unless we stop producing it, the future is bleak," said green crusader Subhas Datta.
Nearly 1.15 million tonnes to 2.41 million tonnes of plastic have entered the marine environment, causing the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. A 2,45,000 square-km of the sea bed has become a dead zone because of the accumulation of plastic waste. No life can survive due to the release of toxic chemicals from plastic waste.
"The greater danger, however, is that micro-plastic has steadily entered our food chain. It is there in fish, meat, water, and even in crops," said Abhisek Ganguly, a preventive medicine expert.