Manufacturers confident of addressing plastic menace soon
Source: Chronicle News Service
Imphal, September 27 2022:
Packaged Drinking Water Manufacturers and Allied Industries, Manipur has informed that in addition to taking up recycling work of plastic bottles, efforts are on to solve the problem of littering of the same in the State within 1-2 months; Speaking to newspersons at Manipur Press Club here on Tuesday, Packaged Drinking Water Manufacturers and Allied Industries, Manipur president M Geetchandra maintained that the packaged drinking water industry in the state is taking a whole new direction, with the situation getting worse after the government s ban on use of single use plastic.
The main issue is that the industry cannot be shut down, he said while urging the government to consider the inconveniences.
Informing that efforts have been made tp set up over 100 bottle banks to collect and store used plastics, particularly those dumped on the roadsides; he said that the used plastic bottles are purchased at Rs 15 per kg and sent to the process section for recycling.
According to Industries' executive member Thangjam Arunkumar, the industry is adhering to the government's instruction of repurchasing the plastic bottles sold by them.
For this, the bottle bank was launched and so far, over 80 banks have been set in different places.
If required, over 200 banks will be set up.
Local clubs have responded positively in this regard and a joint venture will be taken out on September 30 with some organisations for setting up the bottle banks and recycling activities, he said.
While informing that the bottles dumped on the roadside will be purchased at Rs 15 per kg and polythene bags at Rs 10 per kg, Arunkumar said that there are two registered recycling units for repurchasing the empty bottles and 10 unregistered recycling units.
There are also some recycling units in the unorganised sector.
MoUs have been signed with the registered recycling units and the collected bottles will be handed over to them, which will then be compressed and sent to recycling units outside the state.
Confiding that so far, 8MT of bottles have been collected, Arunkumar said as there are only two plastic manufacturing units in the state only 5 per cent, of plastic bags could be manufactured in Manipur with the rest 95 per cent imported from outside the state.
In addition, collection of the plastics dumped on the roads and outside offices have been initiated.
Plastic bag and polythene wholesalers have also been contacted for recycling purposes.
These efforts will help maintain a clean environment including rivers, wetlands and roads, he opined.
"Empty plastic bottles are used to store liquid detergents or for selling petrol by vendors on roadside.
Rural households also use the bottles in a variety of ways, thereby, reducing the littering rate.
Meanwhile, in urban areas, the littering is due to careless dumping.
As such, once the bottles are recollected and sent for recycling the littering will cease and Manipur, particularly, Imphal, will no longer have the problem of littering of plastic bottles within the next 1-2 months", he said, while adding that the Association will take up this task and see it through.
On the other hand, the government has been urged to permit the manufacturing of half-litre capacity water bottles as the core issue at hand is plastic waste management.
The industry supports the government's plastic policy which came into effect from July 1 this year.
However, the first packaged water was manufactured in Manipur prior to 2000 but gained momentum after 2005.Post 2010, the packaged drinking water industry witnessed a huge growth and was able to meet the demands of the state including bottles and jars which were previously purchased from Assam and Nagaland.
This not only helped increase the revenue of the state, but also created job opportunities for around 3000 people in the 30 BIS and FSSAI licensed units in the state, Arunkumar conveyed.
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