Discuss the negative impacts of plastic toxicity and to what extent the recent Plastic Waste Management (Amendment) Rules 2018 could address the menace of it.
Refer – Business Standard
IAS Parliament 6 years
KEY POINTS
Negative Impacts
· Plastic toxicity is known for its enduring adverse effects on territorial and aquatic life.
· In food, it can alter human hormones to cause major life-threatening diseases.
· Plastic materials, especially bags and bottles strewn on roads, have been noticed to cause flooding by blocking drains.
· They also kill stray cattle by choking.
Plastic Waste Management (Amendment) Rules
· Dilution – Many significant provisions of the earlier plastic waste management policy, 2016 have been discarded or diluted now.
· The Plastic Waste Management Amendment Rules 2018 has omitted the explicit pricing of carry bags mentioned in 2016 rule.
· MLP – Multi-layered plastics are supposed to be phased out. But these have been given a fresh lease of life by easing the norms concerned.
· Only MLP that are “non-recyclable or non-energy recoverable or have no alternate use” are to be phased out.
· This leaves hardly any category of multi-layered plastics to be phased out. Any product can be claimed to have some alternate use to escape the bar.
· Producers - The new norms seem to have been crafted with an eye on ease of doing business.
· This seems to be happening at the cost of the environment and public health due to plastic use.
· “Extended producer responsibility” bound plastic producers, importers and brand owners.
· They are required to ensure environmentally sound management of their products till the end of their useful life.
· The new policy is soft on “extended producer responsibility”.
