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PACPROCESS-DRINKTECH 2019 SHOWDAILY 14 DECEMBER 2019 | SUPPORTED BY PACKAGING SOUTH ASIA & INDIFOODBEV
CAN WE JUST WISH AWAY THE VITAL ROLE OF SINGLE-USE PLASTIC?
Sing a song of single use
the high cost of collecting con-
sumer waste and recycling at
proper facilities.
DEEPAK MANCHANDA
T
he inevitable reaction to
the clamor for the ban
on single-use plastics
has been skepticism and disbe-
lief from the plastics and pack-
aging industry. It is hard to im-
agine modern society without
single-use plastics. It would
need a fundamental transfor-
mation in the way we go about
our daily lives. The way discus-
sions have been going around
in circles within the packaging
industry reminds me of that fa-
mous song by Harry Belafonte,
There’s a Hole in the Bucket,
Dear Liza. To paraphrase the
song, broadly:
There’s a hole in the
bucket, dear Liza,
Go fix it dear Henry, dear
Henry,
With what shall I fix it?
Dear Liza,
With a straw dear Henry,
But the straw is too long,
dear Liza
Cut it, dear Henry,
With what shall I cut it?
Dear Liza,
With an axe, dear Henry,
The axe is too dull, dear
Liza,
Sharpen it, dear Henry,
On what shall I sharpen it?
Dear Liza,
On what shall I hone it?
Dear Liza
On a stone, dear Henry,
But the stone is too dry,
dear Liza,
Well, wet it, dear Henry,
With what shall I wet it?
Dear Liza,
Try water, dear Henry, use
water.
In what shall I fetch it?
Dear Liza,
In a bucket, dear Henry,
There’s a hole in the
bucket, dear Liza, a hole!
WAR ON PLASTIC OR
WAR ON PLASTIC WASTE?
This seems to sum up the
current situation quite accu-
rately. The PM has a bucket-list
of things that need to be done
by the nation. Everyone knows
what needs to be done. But few
can see past the difficulties.
Almost everyone knows how
it cannot, and should not, be
done. The holes in the bucket
need to be plugged. But there
appears to be a lack of determi-
nation, or conviction, and uni-
fied entrepreneurship. 
In an apparent bid to em-
phasize the need for unified ac-
tion across society for this pur-
pose, the union minister for
Environment, Forest & Climate
Change, Prakash Javadekar
added to the PM’s statement
by saying that, “A massive pub-
lic campaign will be launched
engaging all stakeholders. A
series of meetings will be held
with all stakeholders, including
state governments, to chalk out
a concrete plan to make elimi-
nation of SUP a people’s cam-
paign to realize the ultimate
target.” 
Swati Singh Sambyal and
Dinesh Bandela writing in
‘Freedom from Single-Use Plas-
tics: A Dream or an Achievable
Target’ in the August 2019 is-
sue of Down To Earth, stress
the need to chalk out a “robust
roadmap to achieve freedom
from SUPs.” They underline
the need to have a clear and
accepted definition of SUPs
which, “are often misunder-
stood to mean only polyethyl-
ene shopping bags.” However,
this is not the case. According
to Sambyal and Bandela, “The
United Nations classifies single-
use plastics as products that
are commonly used for plastic
packaging and include items
intended to be used only once
before they are thrown away
or recycled. These include
grocery bags, food packaging
products, bottles, straws, con-
tainers, cups, and cutlery.”
The former union minis-
ter for Environment, Dr Harsh
Vardhan is quoted in the arti-
cle, “Our beloved prime minis-
ter Shri Modi ji has envisioned
a new India by 2022; an India
of our dreams, which shall
be clean, poverty-free, cor-
ruption-free,
terrorism-free,
casteism-free and most of all –
a global superpower. This India
of our dreams shall also be sin-
gle-use plastic-free. We make
a solemn pledge that by 2022,
we shall eliminate all single-
use plastic from our beautiful
country.”
Such statements, as well as
social activism, have already
prompted several states to en-
act local laws against the use
of single-use plastic packaging.
The courts have duly endorsed
these laws. Such states – nota-
bly, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu,
and Himachal Pradesh – while
putting well-intentioned re-
strictions in place are finding it
difficult to enforce them due to
In this context, Nitin Pai, di-
rector, Takhsashila Institution
(a center for public policy re-
search) writing in The Print
(Sep 2019) observes, “If India’s
proposed ban on single-use
plastics is successful, the ben-
efit is that (while) we will re-
duce plastic pollution, it would
be at the cost of worsening the
cumulative environmental im-
pact. Note that the Modi gov-
ernment’s plan goes beyond
plastic bags and includes ban-
ning plastic cups, plates, and
the use of plastic in packaging.
It is inconceivable that the al-
ternatives to plastic will be any
less environmentally damag-
ing. I do not think anyone has
worked out the sheer numbers
involved. Given the environ-
mental stakes, the responsible
thing to do – before announc-
ing a nationwide ban on plas-
tics – would be to conduct a
robust scientific study of the
impact of replacing the billions
of items of plastic that Indians
use every day.”
In another significant in-
sight, Pai refers to the impact
of the plastics ban on the poor
of the country: “The burden
of a plastic ban will dispropor-
tionately affect the poor. From
milk and biscuit packets to toi-
letry sachets and plastic bags,
the low cost of plastic packag-
ing makes a number of essen-
tial goods accessible and af-
fordable to the poor.
“Any increase in packaging
costs will directly affect the dis-
posable incomes of the poor.
While your supermarket can
well afford to charge you Rs
10 for the plastic bag, the fruit
and vegetable vendor on the
street cannot. At the margin,
the additional friction and in-