Politics of Recycling Plastic

Context: As the use of plastic has been normalized due to its excessive use in the form of plastic protection gears critical in war against COVID, challenges to its recycling remains.

Challenges of Plastic Pollution:

• Recycling Challenges: 

• Nobody wants waste: Global plastic industry has been justifying its continued production of highly durable plastic with the false assumption of full recycling.

• China’s National Sword Policy of 2018 aimed at stopping imports of plastic waste for “re-processing”.
• Before the 2018 ban, 95% of the European Union’s and 70% of the US’s plastic waste collected for recycling was sold and shipped to China.

• Slack recycling standards: 

• Food waste is mixed with plastic, making it more contaminated and difficult to recycle.

• India’s plastic waste problems:

• Growing plastic waste: Central Pollution Control Board Report

• While rich states like Goa produce as much as 60 grams of plastic per capita per day; Delhi is catching up with 37 grams per capita per day.
• The national average is around 8 grams per capita per day.
• As societies become more affluent, they will become more wasteful.

• Impact on business and jobs: If we stop using plastic, the recycling industry (run by the informal sector, and with the poorest people who work in a most abysmal condition) will collapse.

• Regulatory inefficiencies: 

• The 2016 Plastic Management Rules (PMR) assured that all multi-layered plastic (used in foodstuffs and gutkha or shampoo) use would be phased out in two years.
• Fatal amended to PMR: now only non-recyclable waste needs to be phased out, thus leaving non-recyclable multilayered plastic waste to be sent to incinerators.

Way Forward:

• Careful segregation of Waste: The fact is that recycling plastic needs careful segregation at the household level; this puts the onus on us and the local bodies.

• Public Participation: It’s time we dismembered and took apart the world of recycling.