Ruined lives, shuttered factories: Anti-plastic campaign brings down a city

Halol is India's hub of plastic bag and granule manufacturers. As public opinion turns against using plastics, small businesses and ordinary people are struggling to cope up

Early morning on September 16 this year, Rajendrasinh Khushwah’s wife found him hanging from a ceiling hook in their living room in Gujarat’s Halol, a city that’s the hub of plastic bag and granule manufacturers. Khushwah, 60, a small plastic bag manufacturer, had to sell his machinery and rent out his premises when Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s demonetisation decision in November 2016 dried up payments for his goods. The second blow to Khushwah’s business came when Modi, in his Independence Day speech this year, spoke against single-use plastics. The people who had rented Khushwah’s premises shut shop in August, leaving