The new ban on ‘single use plastic’ is on. The government has defined ‘single-use’ plastic as something that is used once and then disposed of or recycled.
The government has listed 21 items that need to be phased out and they included plates made of plastic, cups made of plastic, earbuds with plastic sticks, glasses made of plastic; wrapping or packaging films around sweet boxes, cigarette packets among others.
While going through the extensive lists, it made me sit up and wonder as to how plastics have quietly seeped into our lives and become so well-entrenched that we can’t think of a life without them.
The durability and convenience the plastics offer have proved to be a Faustian bargain in the long run. Once we discard plastic items, they are not biodegradable and usually go to a landfill where it is buried or it gets into the water and finds its way into the ocean. They later break down into tiny particles and release toxic chemicals. These chemicals find their way into our food and water supply and are found in our bloodstream, causing various ailments including cancer, infertility, birth defects and impaired immunity.
I was lucky enough to have a glimpse of what a pre-plastic or a less-plastic era looked like. We had to carry a glass bottle or steel container while going to buy milk, a cloth bag was integral to shopping at grocery and vegetable stores, and every shop stocked discarded newspaper to wrap and pack the goods.
Some shopkeepers used the packets made out of newspapers, while others used the newspaper sheets to wrap the commodities which were tied up using a thread – of thick cotton or gunny bag material. The speed and adeptness with which those veteran shopkeepers used to wrap and tie ½ kg dal or sugar in a paper sheet and tie it up with a thread used to make me wonder how they pulled it off.
Back then, there were hardly any supermarkets and friendly neighbuorhood kirana stores were the mainstays, even in metro cities. They were basic sub-1,000 square feet stores with gunny bags of rice, wheat, sugar, and various pulses occupying most of the floor space, while bottles of health drinks such as Horlicks or Bournvita, soap, toothpaste, and other toiletries and detergents were laid out in shelves.
The storefront cupboard with a glass display was reserved for chocolates and biscuits, while toffees of various price range and various dry fruits were stored in largish cookie jars made of glass. This was how Kirana stores from Kashmir to Kanyakumari looked with minor variations.
At vegetable shops there were tokris (baskets made out of bamboo) to keep different vegetables. At meat and fish shops the mutton or chicken was wrapped in paper and we need to have a cloth bag to carry them home.
Hospitals, clinics, and medical stores doled out syrups and tonics in glass bottles. Cool drinks such as Fanta and Coke in their earlier avatar came in glass bottles, tea/coffee in hotels was many served in glass tumblers or steel glasses. In places such as Agra and some other neighbouring towns we had tea shops serving tea in kulhads or clay containers.
Plastic was confined to a few items such as toothbrushes, pens, face cream containers, lunch boxes and water bottles for schoolchildren, and educational stationery such as rulers, protractors, and set squares.
Later milk cooperatives adopted plastic bags, as they offered hassle-free milk delivery. Customers too readily accepted it as milk bottles or containers were no longer required.
The introduction of Polyethylene Terephthalate containers or PET bottles and the concept of bottled mineral water dealt a body blow to the glass bottle industry. Colas, cough syrups, liquor, shampoo … all that were hitherto packaged in glass bottles, began getting replaced by PET bottles, as they were unbreakable.
Soon some of these bottles found their way to trash cans. But in many households these bottles began to be reused for other utilitarian purposes such as storing edible oils.
Moreover, ragpickers, who act as links between the community and plastic recycling units, play a major role in bringing down plastic waste. These men and women live on the margins of society, and their working conditions are hazardous, rummaging through garbage mounds dotting most urban areas of the country.
However, it soon proved to be a losing battle for them, as plastic usage kept on increasing and even getting introduced in hitherto unused areas.
One of the early disruptors of this already worsening situation was plastic cups. They began making their presence at railway stations. The areas near the railway tracks began bearing the brunt as passengers began throwing discarded cups through the window. Soon all tea shops began dispensing tea in plastic cups as one need not wash cups and users also found it easy to carry and not bother about returning the glass.
Then came the plastic carry bags, which just turned the whole packaging industry on its head. The first to go was the paper bags and newspaper sheets as shopkeepers found plastic carry bags to be more convenient to use - no time-consuming wrapping was required.
Customers too were drawn to this novelty as it gave them freedom from using cloth bags and they could carry it easily, come rain or shine. They dealt a body blow to the discarded newspaper business, as shopkeepers traded paper bags with plastic ones.
Soon plastic carry bags acquired a pan-India presence and they were used to carry just about everything - from groceries to vegetables to fish and meat.
After the novelty value vanished, the devastating effects of these bags began to set in. They were found discarded in trash cans and on the wayside. As they were lightweight they got easily blown away by the wind like cotton seed flowers and soon became ubiquitous – and were found even in the bellies of stray cattle.
For garbage managers, they became a major headache and soon municipal landfills soon got overwhelmed by plastic bags. City municipalities tried various methods including waste segregation, a ban on the use of plastic bags, and a crackdown on stores violating these norms, but these bags of 40-50 micron thickness continue to elude any viable and long-lasting solution.
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