“Why are you using polythene bags bhaiya when the municipality is trying to ban it?” said my classmate to the street panipuri stall seller, on our way back from coaching. “What am I supposed to do then? I will follow the Plastic-ban let’s say when it happens, but what is the alternative? It’s not like I can afford other packaging or cloth bags would hold on to water! My business will go through that cloth bag, the same way the spicy water would”.
Plastic has made its way into every common household and now letting it go would lead to a silent crisis that could unite into a bigger problem. Plastic waste is the major contributor to soil, water pollution and reduces the life quality of ocean creatures. Recently scientists analyzed human blood and from 22 study participants, they found microplastics in 17 of the blood samples. Yes, microplastic has now entered the human bloodstream too.
This all leads to the question if Plastic is the problem or its waste management is? It is a commonly known fact that plastic is non-biodegradable; a mere water bottle takes 450 years to decompose. The process of photo-degradation which requires the sun to break down the plastic and not bacteria from the soil is delayed as plastic waste usually ends up trapped in landfills with layers of debris and other waste over it. Even before breaking down, plastic creates havoc on life and the natural stability of soil quality, ocean, etc.
Now, one of the solutions which are the government’s “go-to” is banning plastic altogether: no polythene bags to be seen in the market, no plastic bottles thrown here and there, the total extinction of cheap plastic, and the planet and its environment, saved. How nice would it have been if banning plastic would solve all the problems that plastic brought along? It could be the first step towards solving the plastic waste crisis, but is it the best we can do?
The human race currently and its lifestyle are majorly dependent on plastic. From storage to easy access, cheap manufacture, long-lastingness, flexibility, etc are the pros of plastic that lead to its mass production throughout the twentieth century, now leaving us with a crisis of plastic waste management. The solution is in some way banning plastic, but it needs more alterations, more boosters. Simply banning it might do no good.
Alternatives to plastic are needed, and how accessible, flexible this material is to replace plastic is to be studied beforehand. One of the answers to the plastic crisis also includes recycling. Countries like Japan, Korea, and Thailand have green village programs, etc which focus on reducing plastic waste and recycling it. Plastic in itself has proved how useful and cheap it is, imagine a world where it doesn’t end up in oceans and landfills; instead in recycling plants dedicated to reducing its impact.
Everybody doesn’t have access to beeswax-cloth or could afford it, not forgetting how currently it can’t be mass-produced like plastic. Thus alternatives and other steps are needed. For example, banning polythene bags, a solution for street food panipuri sellers must also be provided, or else banning plastic might do more harm than good.
By Madhav Singh Nathawat