The plastic monster

India Inc will have to lead the charge against it

Last week, activists from Greenpeace Africa delivered to the Nestle factory serving East Africa a giant plastic monster made of the company’s brand packaging. This was an effective way of conveying that much of the needed action on restricting the prevalence of single-use plastic throughout the world will need to be taken by the big fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies. It is certainly an important and urgent issue — according to the United Nations Environment Programme, over 8 billion tonnes of plastic has been produced since the 1950s and that might increase to as much as 34 billion tonnes by