Plastic Waste Management (Amendment) Rules 2024: Key Points 

• Responsibility of Local bodies/Panchayat at District level: Prepare annual report on plastic waste existing at dump sites, infrastructure available for collection, segregation, processing, projection of plastic waste to be generated etc. 

• Responsibility of producers, importers and brand owners: 

• Sell plastic raw material only to producers or sellers registered under these rules.

• Not sell plastic raw material to any entity or units engaged in manufacturing of prohibited single use plastic items, submit annual report to CPCB etc.

• Responsible for collection of such plastic packaging, fulfils extended producer responsibility, etc.

• Provision of thickness shall not apply to carry bags or commodities made from compostable plastic or biodegradable plastics.

• Change in definition: Of biodegradable plastics, importer, manufacturer, producer, and seller.

• Annual report to be prepared by: 

• Person engaged in selling, recycling or processing, shall prepared an online report, 

• State pollution control board or pollution control committee and by CPCB shall prepare a consolidated annual report.

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PLASTIC POLLUTION IN INDIA

• Plastic waste forms 10% of the total waste generated in India.
• 50% of plastic is discarded as waste after single use  rapid plastic waste generation.
• Out of total plastic waste, only 60% is recycled (70% at registered facilities, 30% by informal sector).
• India is among top 20 countries that dump maximum plastic waste in oceans.

SINGLE-USE PLASTICS (SUP)

• They are disposable plastic items that are commonly used for packaging & include items intended to be used only once before they are thrown away or recycled.
• For eg. grocery bags, plastic bottle caps, food wrappers, bottles, straws, containers, cups, cutlery etc.

Impact Of Plastic Pollution: Marine Pollution, Land pollution, Human Health

• Marine Pollution- As plastics travel with ocean currents, an island of trash called the “Great pacific Garbage Patch” has been created. There are now many islands of trash in the seas. 

• Poisoning of marine food chain – Plastics, esp. micro–plastics in the oceans are ingested by marine organisms. Toxins, such as DDT, bio accumulate along the food chain – from phytoplankton to humans.

• Land pollution – Indiscriminate dumping of plastic makes the land infertile due to its barrier properties.

• Contamination of groundwater, surface water & soil – Lead & Cadmium pigments leach out into ground.

• Air pollution – Manufacturing and burning of plastics generates toxic emissions such as Carbon Monoxide, Chlorine, Hydrochloric Acid, Dioxin, Furans, 

• Human Health – >80% of drinking water contains plastic, while burning of plastic results into formation of harmful chemicals called Halogens. These can cause cancer, neurological damage, birth defects etc.

• Financial impact – Non-recyclable plastic wastes such as multilayer, metalized pouches pose difficulty in waste management and entail huge expenditure on technology for waste disposal. 

• Impact aquaculture, agriculture, and tourism industry and associated livelihood security.

• Economic loss due to deaths, increased health expenditure & low productivity of human capital.

• Impact on urban living spaces – Littered plastics give an unaesthetic look in the city, choke the drain and may cause floods during monsoon.

Challenges In Phasing Out Single Use Plastic: Convenience factor, Economic disruption, Attitudinal shift

• Convenience factor – Ease of use has made plastic ubiquitous in people’s lives, and unless an alternative can take care of this aspect, acceptability will remain a serious problem.
• Economic disruption – Banning production or use of plastic may entail economic losses to the packaging industry and industries down the supply chain that depend on such packaging, with resultant job losses.

• May impact the e-commerce industry where packaging is the norm of transactions.

• Issue of enforcement – Bans are difficult to regulate, enforce and monitor. Authorities may lack necessary resources or will to monitor the production of plastics.
• Distributional effects – It is generally the poor producers and consumers who get adversely impacted by the ban as richer users usually find both illegal and legal ways out of the situation. For eg. in case of other bans such as prohibition of alcohol.
• Attitudinal shift – Outright bans have a poor track record in altering behaviour of stakeholders.
• Impact of COVID Pandemic – Many single-use plastic items have become a necessity in eliminating contamination or transmission of diseases, germs, and bacteria, such as sterile packaging for hospital supplies, masks, IV tubes, syringes, pharmaceuticals, food packaging, bandages, etc.

WAY FORWARD

• Provide incentives to industry by introducing tax rebates or other conditions to support its transition and giving them time to adapt.

• Introduction of a pricing system – Like a monetary fine/tax/levy to discourage use of plastic products.

• For eg Levy on Plastic Bags by Germany, Switzerland, China (“White Pollution”), Ireland (Plas-Tax) etc
• Use revenues collected from tax/levies to maximize the public good. For eg. boosting local recycling with the funds and creating jobs in the plastic recycling sector with seed funding.

• Promote Alternatives – Need to explore opportunities to innovate and create new products that will be environmentally friendly for eg. Cotton/Khadi bags, Biodegradable packaging (made from renewable brown seaweed) etc.
• Creating a cost-effective after-use plastic ecosystem for which economics of recycling, reuse, and controlled biodegradation of consumer and industrial plastic will have to be improved. For eg. 

• Beverage makers like Coke & Pepsi have begun printing a buyback value on their PET bottles.

• Behavioural interventions through awareness programmes or “pro-environment informational nudges”, combined with pricing mechanisms have the potential to alter behaviour.

• For eg. “Green” nudges in a form of communication that informs households when their energy use is high and thus, environmentally unsustainable relative to others in the community.

• Strengthening mechanism for collection, recycling and monetising of waste and allocating adequate funds and resources to it.

• For eg. Since 70% of total plastic waste is from urban areas, urban local bodies have been tasked with massive shramdaan for collection & segregation of waste into recyclable & non-recyclable.

• Adoption of ‘Circular Economy’ – that aims to eliminate waste, not just from recycling processes, but throughout the life cycles of products and packaging.

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