Plastic has offered never before convenience and options to the mankind. But on the other hand, it is a major culprit in choking of city drainage system, making our food stuff unhygienic and even causing death of cattle & dogs by making its way into their throat with their food. It has also influenced the culture & social habits. What I hate the most about it is plastic bags & packaging has stolen the beauty of the nature. When I go tracking in the Himalayas, I find plastic scattered everywhere even in the remotest & hard to access places. This is very painful to my eyes. No matter how far you go, wherever you go, you can’t escape its ugly sights!

So you can understand why I was feeling a bit relieved while reading an alarming headline in today’s Economic Times which read : “Blame it on plastic ban, 4,000 to lose job“. This is a news story from Gujarat. It creates a gloomy picture by saying that the strict implementation of the ban on use of plastic carry bag thinner than 20 micron in Gujarat is likely to render about 4,000 employees jobless across Gujarat. Besides, Vadodara, Surat and Rajkot, the plastic bag manufacturing units at Rakhial, Odhav, Naroda and Vatva in Ahmedabad have been forced to close down their operation.

But to survive people should remain creative and dynamic in their approach. If they are capable they will find their calling elsewhere and probably a better option. Why to worry about them to take such decisions which are in the favour of society at large?

The country’s annual production of various type of carry bags stood at about 51 lakh tonnes. Gujarat alone annually produces somewhere between 35,000 and 40,000 tonnes of carry bags.

Irony is that carry bags less than 20 micron thin thrown as garbage are not collected by the rag-pickers as it is not possible to collect them, which results in creating danger to the environment. Sometimes these bags become the unusual meals for cows and dogs and also chokes drainage system. Gujarat government had announced the year 2007 to observe as the “Nirmal Gujarat” — clean Gujarat. So awareness programmes against littering and segregation and disposal of plastic waste are being launched.

On the other hand, yesterday, the Central Government approved of a National Policy for Petrochemicals that envisages providing tax incentives to the industry to enable India emerge as a global player in the segment. Check complete story at economictimes.indiatimes. This policy is targeting plastic as the thrust area and want to increase the per capita consumption of plastic from 1.6kg at present to 4kg in 5 years period. The policy has also proposed allowing medium and large industries to manufacture certain plastic items, currently reserved for the small scale sector. It is also increasing the limit of investment in SSI sector from the current Rs. on crore to Rs. five crore.

This will increase the production of plastic carry bags which is currently the arena of a largely unorganised sector. So what should be our national policy towards plastic packaging & carry bag production? Should we give in to the market demand and enhance our production levels to meet it or should we plan a “Nirmal India” project on the lines of the “Nirmal Gujarat“?