Plastics: what can be done?

What needs to be done to phase out the evil of plastics?

First, companies that produce plastics and those who use plastics in their packaging or product making should bear the responsibility for it throughout its life cycle. This is called extended producers responsibility (EPR) in which every manufacturer is responsible for the plastics they use. Such a company is responsible for ensuring that the plastic is collected and recycled. This ensures manufacturers are unable to pass on the burden for cleaning it up to others. If we had adequate EPR in India, perhaps we would see fewer plastics!
Second, we need to phase out toxics materials like PVC from the materials cycle entirely. Only by beginning a planned, time-bound phase out can the change be expected to occur.
Third, by encouraging alternatives the burden of plastics can reduce in society. Of course, no single material is an adequate substitute for plastics. Yet, packaging that is cellulose (paper) based will only encourage forestry and green practices, and therefore prove less of a burden on the environment. While alternative materials are one solution to plastics, better design is another.
Fourth , a sensible policy on packaging and waste minimisation is urgently needed. Everyone in India is allowed to produce as much waste as they like. There are neither incentives nor effective rules to reduce the waste generated. In the case of plastics, most of the plastics, i.e., 52 per cent, go into packaging. It is here that rules are required to both reduce the amount of packaging materials per se and the amount of plastics in packaging. Ireland has recently proved to the world that this can be done. A green tax has taken 1 billion plastic bags off the shelves since March 2002 and Irish shoppers have cut down their need for plastic bags overnight by 90 per cent. All this is thanks to small 15 per cent fees levied on each bag. In the first three months since the government introduced the new 15 per cent plastic bag levy consumers used some 277 million fewer bags.

Instead of using a staggering 1.2 billion plastic bags shoppers will walk away from checkouts with just 120 million plastic bags over a 12-month period in a sea change of shopping culture. Moreover, when packaging cannot be recycled it must be particularly disincentivised. Efforts therefore have to remove the misconception that plastics are "cheap and safe" and therefore the industry and consumer need to get subsidies.