The Hindu : Tamil Nadu's bold legislative move

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, May 25, 2002

Opinion

Opinion - News Analysis

Tamil Nadu's bold legislative move

By Mukund Padmanabhan

The fate of the boldest piece of legislation yet against disposable plastics hangs in a delicate balance. Having been referred to a select committee, there are serious apprehensions that the Tamil Nadu Plastic Articles (Prohibition of Sale, Storage, Transport and Use) Bill, will be halted or, more possibly, diluted beyond all recognition.

Against this background, it is important to understand what the legislation is about and what it could achieve if implemented. The first thing to note is that the Bill is unlike legislations passed by other States in an extremely significant way. The focus of the Acts passed by States such as Goa and Himachal Pradesh (particularly when originally passed) was limited to the prevention of plastic litter.

This has been extended over time to include other wastes (bio-medical, animal anatomical etc.) but the legislations remain tied to the problems of garbage disposal/management. The Tamil Nadu Bill adopts a different route and, in a critical way, addresses the root of the problem. It is aimed at actually curbing the use of certain kinds of disposable plastics. It is founded on the promotion of public health, not merely on the prevention of litter.

The Tamil Nadu Bill has two central clauses. One bans the sale, storage or transport of non-reusable plastic carry bags, cups, tumblers or plates.

The other prohibits those who run food establishments to use these and some other disposable plastic articles, most of which are used to either eat or wrap food with.

The fact that the Bill covers all disposable carry bags and not merely those of a particular thickness has been the subject of some debate.

This is because of the Union Ministry of Environment's 1999 notification which requires that carry bags made either of virgin or recycled plastics shall not be less than 20 microns.

Does the Tamil Nadu Bill's failure to specify a micron count a reflection of its ``unscientific nature'' or its unreasonably drastic nature? Hardly. There are strong reasons to believe that the Centre's 20-micron stipulation has actually increased the use of plastic in some areas. Thicker bags, particularly granulated ones, made an appearance in States such as Maharashtra where the 20-micron rule was being applied.

Moreover, the stipulation gives enforcers an extremely difficult task. How does one determine whether a bag is 19 or 20 microns before taking action against an offender? It was problems such as this which led the Goa Government last year to proscribe carry bags with a thickness of less than 100 microns. But there is no evidence which suggests that increasing thickness measures reduces plastics consumption or radically curbs the practice of throwing away such bags.

As for the Bill's requirement that food establishments eschew the use of plastic, the provision has been possibly inspired by studies which determine that take-away eateries contribute an enormous amount of plastic waste in the West. A similar trend is noticeable in India with the nascent but fast-growing fast food/take-away culture.

From a different standpoint, the Bill has been criticised for not doing enough. For example, for not touching poly vinyl chloride (PVC), possibly the most dangerous form of plastic, or not extending to cover plastic bottles. In this connection, it is reliably learnt that a sister bill aimed at encouraging the return and recycling of PET/beverage bottles has already been drafted. Apparently, it has been temporarily shelved because of some legal queries of a classificatory nature. Apparently, the State Law Ministry was worried that beverage bottles may not stand legal scrutiny as a class in itself.

Likewise, the Tamil Nadu Plastic Articles Bill has also raised some interpretational issues, such as the possibly fuzzy meaning of words such as ``re-usable'' or ``food establishments''.

If the Bill is approved and survives legal challenge, these are unlikely to be a problem as long as the law is applied to achieve its objective.

Finally, there are claims that such disposable plastics cannot be controlled by something as simple as a ban.

The last argument is the easiest to dispose. The Nilgiris, where a ban on similar plastic articles has been force for some time now, is a remarkable example of how administrative will can go an extremely long way in curbing the menace of plastic waste.

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