Banking on Modi mantra to eradicate plastic malaise
- The People's Chronicle Editorial :: May 20, 2022 -

YET again, the government of Manipur has decided to restrict usage of single-use plastics, with the latest move attributed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's objective to phase out the environmentally hazardous products by July, 2022.

With a little over two months left for the deadline to kick in, it remains to be seen how effective the cabinet-mandated Manipur Plastic Policy, 2022 would be as use of plastic items, carry bags in particular, has become part and parcel of daily life and livelihood.

Considering the fact that drainage systems generally get clogged due to unregulated discard of plastic products, environmentalists would definitely be looking forward to impartial execution of the cabinet resolution adopted on Wednesday to regulate use of plastics.

With forest and environment minister Th Biswajit, himself announcing that the state cabinet has given the green signal to adopt Manipur Plastic Policy, 2022 in the wake of PM Modi's announcement to ban single use plastic within July 31 this year, effective enforcement of the same will depend on the minister's consistent involvement to ensure that the traders as well as the customers do not defy the law of the land.

While framing of relevant rules of the policy is unlikely to be arduous as it would simply entail copying the similar policies found effective elsewhere in the world, there are reasons to suspect that traders might have already devised plans to hoodwink personnel of the law enforcement agencies, whose sincerity and diligence will ultimately be the deciding factor in eradication of the ills of plastic menace.

For instance, back in August, 2017, the government issued a circular declaring that import and sale of plastic items, including carry bags which are less than 50 micron in thickness, will invite monetary fine and repeated offenders jailed.

The directive was followed up with drives to seize plastic carry bags and announcement of more stringent penalties by the Manipur Pollution Control Board.

Few months later after the aforementioned government circular, another order issued by the deputy secretary of forests and environment had given more teeth to the law enforcement agents and entrusted them to shoulder the responsibility of reducing the threat posed to the public health by plastic wastes and check environmental pollution.

After over five years of the circular and anti-plastic campaigns, there has been no notable achievement on the matter as is evident from big business houses to the street vendors using the same without any inhibition.

Apart from absence of firm crackdown, policy makers' inability to come up with an adequate scientific recycling or disposal facilities has resulted in plastic bags in bulk ending up either in landfills, where they tend to last practically forever, or on city roads, where they pose a traffic hazard, and in drains, where they end up clogging sewage systems.

Therefore, success of the latest cabinet decision on restricting or regulating use of plastic items shall have to be blended with punishing those found violating the directive, and finding alternative environment-friendly to replace the comparatively inexpensive and convenient plastic carry bags, without which Modi' objective can't be achieved, at-least here in the state.