by N.S.Venkataraman
In recent years, around the world, vigorous and noisy anti plastic
campaign by the so called environmentalists and activists to stop using
plastics for short term and long term
need have been gaining strength, backed by the media campaign.
campaign by the so called environmentalists and activists to stop using
plastics for short term and long term
need have been gaining strength, backed by the media campaign.
to a hate plastic campaign, making innocent people think that use of plastic in
any form for any application is bad and against public health and against
environmental interests. While such is the intensive global campaign against plastics, the
negative impact of such campaign amongst the public who do not have adequate
technological understanding of various related matters is severe. In India, the
hate campaign against plastics has assumed a complexion similar to the campaign
against untouchability when historically
some castes were discriminated.
Government of India has pledged to eliminate single use
plastics in India by 2022 and for setting such target, India has won global
acclaim for it’s “Beat Plastic Pollution Resolve” declared on world
Environmental Day last year. So far, around 22 states and Union territories in India have joined
anti plastic campaign by announcing ban on single use plastics such as carry
bags, cups , plates, cutlery, straws and thermocol products.
When the title of the world anti plastic campaign was termed as “Beat Plastic Pollution” resolve,
the campaign was virtually launched against all sort of plastics for any type
of use, which made it to be unrealistic, counter productive and
negative campaign.
While launching the
full fledged anti plastic campaign, neither the central and the state
governments in India nor the
environmentalists and activists have cared to make any distinction between
various types of plastics that are subjected to different use and applications.
This has given an impression to the common man that the use of plastics in any
form for any application should be
rejected and producers of plastic goods are viewed as polluters by some section
of the people.
Millions of tonne of different category of plastic are
being used around the world for various applications. Such plastics include
polyethylene, poly propylene, poly acetal, poly carbonate and many others. They are used for various applications including
in construction activities , pipelines and fittings , packaging , electronics
and tele communication .agriculture, medical diagnostics, fish net and several others,. Plastic is now playing
an integral and inevitable part in many economic and industrial activities and
this has to be recognized by the anti plastic campaigners. The question is
whether it would be possible to eliminate the use of all types of plastics in
all types of applications. This is technologically and economically unfeasible.
The main campaign against plastics centres around the
fact that plastic is non biodegradable. The anti plastic campaigners gleefully
carry out propaganda that if one would keep plastic product, it would remain in
the same shape even after one thousand years.
However, the ground reality is that non biodegradability as such need
not be considered as negative aspect, as in several applications the permanent
use of a material is a positive factor.
It is further said that
plastic has been seen in the dung of elephants , in the stomach of the
cows which eat them etc. It is also said that thousands of tonne of plastics
are dumped and seen in the oceans and
reservoirs as waste product permanently floating around . The electronic waste
materials and plastic products used as packaging material etc. are also seen
dumped everywhere. There are also
allegations that plastic products are carcinogenic when incinerated.
But, the question is why should the used plastics be dumped or burnt.
While the dumped plastics as waste material are a problem
, it need to be thought about whether the ban on single use plastics will
relieve the waste plastic burden to any
significant extent. While single use plastic is sought to be banned or restricted
around the world in single use
application such as carry bags,
plastics are used in several packaging products such as packaging of
food , cosmetics, groceries , industrial goods etc. which would continue to be used for long time to come, due to the absence of
equally efficient and convenient substitute material.
Around the world, many research efforts have been
initiated to develop and produce bio polymers such as poly lactic acid , starch
blended polymer etc. to make the plastics bio degradable. However, the
technology development efforts are still largely in the formative stage and
commercially available bio degradable products in adequate measure and quantity
to replace conventional plastics with equal efficacy and utility value are
unlikely to be available in the near future. The cost of production of such bio
polymers is also a vital issue, as higher production cost would make it
difficult for bio polymer to compete with the conventional plastics.
The anti plastic campaign
deploring the use of plastic entirely is not appropriate. It is high
time that the anti plastic campaign should be tempered and reformed to make a
distinction between the plastics of different types for use in different
applications.
The campaign against the single use plastics and regulatory measures which have just been
started in India and several countries
is also likely to meet practical problems before long, due to non availability of substitute
products in adequate quantity with equal
efficacy. The present use of single use plastics are so high in quantity that
replacing them with paper or jute or cotton textile can be done only to a
limited extent due to availability issue of substitute products. In the case of
textiles, some of the products like polyester staple fibre, polyester filament
yarn, nylon etc. are non bio degradable products but still are used in some
countries like India as substitute for conventional plastics for packaging and
as carry bags.
Obviously, the anti plastic campaign is being carried out
without tangible alternate plans. It is doubtful that while several state
governments in India have banned single use plastics , whether any systematic
study have been carried out to assess the availability of substitute products.
Obviously, the entire strategy and plans to ban use of plastics is being carried out in vacuum.
The problem is not due to the use of plastics but the
lack of facility to recycle and reuse plastics after it’s utility is over.
While some baby steps have been taken to recycle plastics in isolated way in small capacity plants, a
pragmatic world wide campaign in massive scale
to recycle used plastics is yet to be launched.
Until suitable alternate strategies and measures are worked out and well implemented to
develop bio degradable substitute for plastics and recycle the used
plastics, the anti plastic campaign is
likely to remain as a matter of academic interest and exciting issue and topic
for the media and environmentalists and activists.
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