The Government and Trade bodies should have foreseen this consequence of their Order. After exempting small PET and PETE bottles with a carrying capacity of less than half a litre from the plastic ban, the Maharashtra government may further dilute the ban by removing more items from the Act’s purview. Going a step backward, the state government is deliberating with plastic traders and manufacturers, and other stakeholders to find practical solutions to collect used plastic products and recycle them. They now will be allowed to make a detailed presentation before the empowered committee. Manufacturers have also suggested to make the weight of each plastic bag minimum 16 grams, which will make them expensive, and small vendors will stop using them. This may reduce littering of plastic bags and eliminate the ubiquitous small bags from the market. Better council prevailed before implementing the plastic ban in full.
Calicut Ramani
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
