2 years after ban, Chennai still adds 500 tons of plastic waste daily:Two years after the Union ministry of environment and forests directed shops to charge for plastic bags, little seems to have changed on the ground. The generation of plastic waste in the state and city has not come down. Chennai generates 489 tonnes of plastic waste a day, which is considered high for a city of its size (see graphic). Environmentalists say it is time to completely ban the use of plastic carry bags. Charging customers 1 or 7 in a mall where you are likely to have spent 7,000 is not making a difference. Either you charge customers 100 to 150 a bag so that it pinches them or ban plastic bags completely, says environmental activist Shwetha Narayan. Others say the only impact of the rule so far is that shops are earning more. Earlier they used to give out plastic bags. Now they just get to pollute the environment further and charge for it and earn revenue out of it, says Dharmesh Shah of the Global Alliance Against Incinerator Alternatives ( GAIA). Some say shops that give paper bags dont charge at all. Industry experts admit that the amount of plastic consumed in the state has not come down from 2011. Consumption of plastic has not dropped, says G Sankaran, a member of the Tamil Nadu Plastic Manufacturers Association. TN consumes around 12 lakh tonnes of plastic a year, of which 50% is produced within the state and the rest brought in from outside. The economics of moving to paper bags also seems to act as a deterrent, especially for small establishments. Shops prefer using plastic because making paper bags costs three times more, says Sankaran. Pugahazh Selvam, who has been in the paper bag industry for 15 years, admits they can never match plastic prices. The only way shops would use paper bags is if they are given a subsidy for using them and plastic carry bags are banned, he says. A paper bag, 12 inches x 15 inches, costs anywhere between 7 and 20 to make. However, cost of making a kg of plastic bags of the same size, each around 50 microns thick, costs 180-190. Environmentalists say banning plastic bags completely is not impossible, because it has been done in the Nilgiris and Kanyakumari. All it requires is a strong monitoring mechanism, says Narayanan. - Others say the only impact of the rule so far is that shops are earning more. Earlier they used to give out plastic bags. Now they just get to pollute the environment further and charge for it and earn revenue out of it, says Dharmesh Shah of the Global Alliance Against Incinerator Alternatives ( GAIA). Some say shops that give paper bags dont charge at all. Industry experts admit that the amount of plastic consumed in the state has not come down from 2011. Consumption of plastic has not dropped, says G Sankaran, a member of the Tamil Nadu Plastic Manufacturers Association. TN consumes around 12 lakh tonnes of plastic a year, of which 50% is produced within the state and the rest brought in from outside. The economics of moving to paper bags also seems to act as a deterrent, especially for small establishments. Shops prefer using plastic because making paper bags costs three times more, says Sankaran. Pugahazh Selvam, who has been in the paper bag industry for 15 years, admits they can never match plastic prices. The only way shops would use paper bags is if they are given a subsidy for using them and plastic carry bags are banned, he says. A paper bag, 12 inches x 15 inches, costs anywhere between 7 and 20 to make. However, cost of making a kg of plastic bags of the same size, each around 50 microns thick, costs 180-190. Environmentalists say banning plastic bags completely is not impossible, because it has been done in the Nilgiris and Kanyakumari. All it requires is a strong monitoring mechanism, says Narayanan. - Pratiksha Ramkumar, TNN Nov 15, 2013, 12.38AM IST
Posted on: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 11:42:13 +0000
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