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MUMBAI (ICIS)–India’s plastic industry players were hoping for government support in ensuring availability of affordable alternative products following the nationwide ban on single-use plastics (SUPs), and in fostering proper waste segregation and collection mechanism to address the country’s waste pollution problems.

From 1 July, manufacturing, import, stocking, distribution, and sale of SUPs are no longer allowed, two years since the government announced the policy, to provide affected parties what it considers as enough time to make the transition.

The ban represents a substantial step towards tackling plastic waste pollution in the country, but could have implications for smaller producers in the country that are now faced with higher costs, according to analysts and industry observers.

SERIOUS EFFORT IN WASTE POLLUTION BATTLE “The [SUP] ban and the intent to enforce it is a step in the right direction,” ICIS plastics recycling analyst Joshua Tan said.

“However, to truly make this ban work, government effort alone is not enough, a system change in consumer behaviour needs to happen to ensure the success of this ban,” he added.

India’s Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change (MoEFCC) has formed special teams across all states and union territories.

These teams are responsible for checking any illegal manufacture, import, stocking, distribution, sale and use of the banned SUP items across the country.

The government has also asked the various state governments to police state borders to stop inter-state movement of any of the banned single use plastic items, the MoEFCC said in a statement.

Various states in India had issued orders to ban plastics before the national ban, but had been unable to check trade and transport of banned items across state borders.

Tan stressed the importance of “education campaigns that generate awareness on the environmental problems caused by SUPs and their alternatives”.

“Alternatives should also be provided to small businesses like food vendors, for example,” he said.

“Business owners have been voicing out their concerns about the abrupt nature of the ban and how it did not give them enough time to transit,” Tan said.

India’s Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has set up a national dashboard which will keep track of the implementation of the ban.

Additionally, it also launched a grievance redressal mobile application, which will allow citizens to monitor and report any violations.

Punitive action has been directed against manufacturers and stockists that continue to defy the ban and government authorities have been asked to revoke licenses of repeat offenders.

While many large industry players had initially opposed the ban due to high costs of alternatives, most have now announced that they will comply with the legislation.

Amul, India’s largest food and dairy brand, which had earlier asked for an extension on the ban on disposable straws, has announced that it would now locally procure some of its requirement of biodegradable straws while also importing paper straws from South Korea and China.

SUP BAN TO HURT SMALL TO MEDIUM ENTERPRISES “Large companies can absorb the cost of switching to costly alternatives. But the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) sector, which manufactures a lot of these items like straws and supplies them to the large companies will feel the biggest impact of the ban,” Jayesh Rambhia, former president of industry body All India Plastic Manufacturers Association (AIPMA)

Another industry body, Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has currently started a nationwide awareness drive across markets in the country to ensure that traders do not stock the banned SUP items.

It has also asked the government to not take coercive actions against traders and producers during the first year of the ban.

“Over a long period, single-use plastic has emerged as a big industry giving employment to lakhs of people in the country,” CAIT said in a statement on 30 June.

“There are nearly 88,000 MSMEs across the country that produce single-use plastic items and employ around one million people, who will lose their livelihoods due to the ban,” Rambhia.

Additionally, the MSMEs may not be able to switch production to alternatives such as biodegradable polymers due to high costs and low availability of raw materials.

“Biodegradable plastic is expensive and largely imported. Using such expensive materials is unviable for manufacturers and also becomes costly for end-users,” said Ankur Nagpal, joint secretary of the Thermoformers and Allied Industries Association (TAIA).

In a statement to the government on 1 July, the TAIA has called the ban discriminatory.

“The government has imposed a blanket ban on the rigid plastic packaging industry but has exempted multi-layered packaging used by large global and domestic fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies for packing snacks, chips, coffee,” Nagpal said.

“These products are lighter in weight and more difficult to recycle. These end up in landfills and oceans,” he added.

RECYCLING CHALLENGE Plastic used for packaging in the FMCG sector is not banned but will be covered under the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) guidelines.

The EPR assigns responsibility to the producer for the environmentally sound management of the product until the end of its life.

“EPR places the responsibility of packaging in the market under the producers that put them out there. It is therefore the responsibility for these producers to collect and send them for recycling at registered waste processors,” said Tan.

He posited two scenarios that will potentially challenge small recyclers – inability to secure the registration due to the nature of their business operation; and inability to meet the recycling standards of the producers despite being a registered waste processor.

“In the first scenario, these recyclers are at risk of losing their business unless they meet the requirements to be a registered waste processor,” he said.

“In the second scenario, recyclers may need to invest in better technologies or production capacities to benefit from this, which may come at a high cost considering small recyclers do not make as much as the larger recyclers do and therefore may not have the financial means to upgrade and sustain a larger facility,” Tan added.

India has classified plastics into four categories, with set recycling targets.

“These timelines are realistic; India’s recycling industry (both formal and informal) are not showing any signs of slowing down and if anything, might be heading into a period of growth based on the recent development in this space (allowing recycled plastics for food contact applications and now EPR),” Tan said.

Meanwhile, industry sources noted that the plastic ban does not address the problems of littering and the lack of waste segregation.

“The main problem in India is not plastic, it is littering and the fact that we do not segregate waste at the source,” said Rambhia.

“We need to improve waste segregation and ramp up our recycling infrastructure,” he said, adding that unless the waste is segregated at source, the recycling and incineration of waste, including plastic waste will be much harder.

India’s plastic waste generation has more than doubled in the last five years from 1.6m tonnes/year in 2015-16 to 3.4m tonnes/year in 2020-21, as per official data.

“Regardless of the sentiment surrounding this ban, it is still indicative of India’s effort to tackle plastic pollution,” ICIS analyst Tan said.

Insight article by Priya Jestin and Pearl Bantillo

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