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9.4 million tonnes every year: Narendra Modi aims to fix India’s plastic scourge
- India has a low per capita consumption of plastic of 11kg a year, compared to 109kg in the US, but much of it is not properly disposed of and eventually makes its way into the food chain
- Lobby groups worry the plastic crackdown will hurt jobs and push up costs in a slowing economy
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India has a mammoth plastic waste problem and no easy way to dispose of the 9.4 million tonnes it generates each year.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants to fix that. Fresh from his campaign to provide tens of millions of toilets for India’s citizens, he is now aiming to limit the consumption of single-use plastic – bags, cups, straws, disposable cutlery – and eliminate its use by 2022. The initiative, to be launched on Wednesday, marks the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi who wanted everyone to “be his own scavenger”.
Unlike scrap metal that is recycled almost entirely, about 90 per cent of the plastic the world has produced so far has been discarded as waste, resulting in global environmental and social damage of more than US$2.2 trillion every year. More than 60 countries have so far introduced bans and levies to curb single-use plastic waste.
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Africa stands out as the continent where the largest number of nations have instituted a total ban on the production and use of plastic bags, according to a 2018 UN report. In Asia, several nations have attempted to control the manufacture and use of plastic bags through levies, but the enforcement regulations have often been poor.
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A crackdown on plastic in India risks jobs losses in an economy enduring the slowest expansion in six years and unemployment at a 45-year high, and rising.
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