From this Friday (July 1), the Indian government officially began to implement the decree banning the use of disposable plastic products. Although this is a good environmental policy, the background of the country's economic turmoil has also cast a shadow on the new deal.
It is reported that India's "plastic ban" is widely involved. For example, since Friday, plastic packaging, plastic tableware, decorative polystyrene, plastic flags, straws and cold drinks with plastic sticks similar to cigarette boxes and other consumer goods have become banned.
India's environment minister bupand Yadav said at this week's press conference that there are three main criteria for being selected for the ban: inefficient use, the potential to be littered and the availability of alternative materials. As early as last year, the government informed the manufacturers that there would be such changes, so they must be able to obtain their support and cooperation.
It is difficult to implement the ban
According to the Indian government, in addition to the checkpoints of the Ministry of environmental protection, the central Pollution Control Commission will also arrange a task force to search for the illegal manufacture, import and use of banned disposable plastic products.
As a country with a population of more than 1.4 billion, India uses 14million tons of plastic every year. The lack of organized recycling management has also led to a large number of plastic waste being discarded casually, which has indeed had a serious impact on the ecological environment.
But for India, the current highly uncertain economic environment has also increased the uncertainty faced by this reform. According to the report of the financial associated press on Friday, "the rupee collapsed and foreign capital withdrew from the Indian stock market in a large scale", the Indian Rupee fell below the 79 rupee mark for the first time in the history of this week, making it one of the worst performing Asian currencies this week. In addition to the trade deficit and capital outflows, the record capital outflows from the Indian stock market are also causing a major impact.
The orders of the Indian government, including Coca Cola, Pepsi and local brand Dabur, all said that the government should not put plastic straws into the ban, but were rejected by the government.
The only good news is that the Indian government has relaxed the ban on plastic bags and only asked manufacturers to increase the thickness to promote reuse. At the same time, plastic bottles of drinking water have not been included in this ban.
Even so, Kishore sampat, chairman of the Indian Association of plastic manufacturers, said that "the industry is not ready yet". Sampat said that the ban will affect more than 80000 enterprises that make disposable plastics and is expected to cause billions of dollars in losses.
As early as this week, before the federal government of India implemented the "plastic ban order", several states in the country had passed similar laws, but from the perspective of implementation, it was not good, and there was basically no experience that could be used to promote to the whole country.
