AIPMA urges govt to find solutions instead of banning plastics

Plastic industy body All India Plastics Manufacturers Association (AIPMA), today urged the government to work jointly with all stakeholders to evolve a workable solution on waste management as Maharashtra government is mulling the idea of banning of carry bags and PET bottles from March 2018.
The state government, in a bid to become a plastic-free state from March 2018, had reportedly banned packaged water bottles in government offices and issued a three-month deadline to bottled water companies to set up a reverse supply mechanism and recycling plants, failing which a complete ban on plastics will be enforced.
Earlier in 2005, the government had imposed a ban on plastic bags less than 50 microns thick after the deluge that claimed several lives in Mumbai and its suburbs that year.

However, the implementation of the ban has not been up to the mark, AIPMA said.
"We have urged the state government to drop the idea of banning plastic products and work jointly with all stakeholders. AIPMA is ready to provide all technical support in plastic waste management. Currently, about 90 per cent of PET bottles are recycled in the country," AIPMA president Hiten Bheda told reporters here.
"It would be a challenge in enforcing the ban as consumers will source goods from neighbouring states," Bheda explained.
Haren Sanghavi, the association's chairman said the plastics industry is a sun-rise industry having 55,000 processing companies, 20,000 recycling units, 55 lakh direct employees and over 70 lakh indirect employees including rag-pickers and waste collectors.

"Banning plastics will cause mass unemployment and de-industrialisation," he said.