India on Thursday banned some single-use or disposable plastic products as part of a plan to phase out the material from the country of nearly 1.4 billion people.
In a first phase, the authorities identified 19 plastic products with a high potential to become waste and Prohibited production, import, storage, distribution and sale.
Cups, straws and popsicle sticks are some of the items prohibited by the new policy, which also includes removal and replacement of disposable plastic bags.
Although thousands of other plastic products are excluded from the ban, such as water bottles or potato chip bags, the government has set targets for manufacturers to be responsible for recycling or destroying them after use.
However, plastic makers have already asked authorities to delay the ban, citing inflation and possible job losses, but India’s environment minister said the move had been in the works for a year.
“Now that time is over,” Bhupender Yadav told a news conference in New Delhi.
This is not the first time that India has considered a plastic ban, although initiatives have never taken this national dimension, targeting specific regions of the country.
Much of the plastic is not recycled globally and millions of tons end up in the seas and oceans, negatively impacting wildlife and the quality of drinking water.
In 2020, more than 4.1 million metric tons of plastic waste was generated in India, according to the India Pollution Monitoring Agency.
Source: Observadora
