Why the ban on single-use plastic in India is self-defeating

‘Reduce, reuse, and recycle’ is often prescribed as the most effective mantra for curbing plastic persistence. The point is to find solutions to the plastic problem that convert it into a giant, profitable opportunity that creates decent livelihoods, profits, and sustainability. Of course, this is a bit more complex than a simple, unenforceable ban, but it is also more sustainable.

Different countries are preparing to ban plastic. Several states and cities in India have already put in place bans on plastic in general or on single-use plastic. These bans serve to add to the income stream of protection racketeers, some of them entrenched in the state machinery, who would allow people to carry on with business as usual, occasionally penalising some offenders to demonstrate what would happen to those who refuse to pay the protection fee.

Plastic breaks down into smaller pieces, transforming those tiny pieces into even smaller pieces, resulting in microplastics. When polyester clothes are washed in a machine, tiny particles of the material used to make the fibre break off and join the drained water, and these microplastics eventually reach the ocean. Using liquid detergents rather than powder reduces the abrasion and breakage of fibre when synthetic clothes are washed.

Reduce, reuse, recycle (RRR) is often prescribed as the most effective mantra for the problem of plastic persistence; some estimates hold that there are more plastic parts accumulated in the ocean than there are fish. Microplastics can enter the food chain and, ultimately, the human body. The consequences could be pretty damaging. The problem is real, but the solution is not to ban plastic. Plastic is helpful in ways that are beyond enumeration. Plastic is the mainstay of modern life, from packaging to medical gear, from spectacle lenses to aircraft windowpanes, and firm but light machinery parts to the housing of most electronics.

Already, technology exists to make some kinds of plastic biodegradable. Polyolefins, a term used to describe both polyethene and polypropylene in different forms, can be rendered degradable at speed by adding chemical additives called d2w and d2p, which make polyolefins biodegradable in the presence of oxygen.

The point is to find solutions to the plastic problem that convert it into a giant, profitable opportunity that creates decent livelihoods, profits, and sustainability. Of course, this is a little more complex than a simple, unenforceable ban, but it is also more sustainable.

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