Port city against plastic pollution

Vizagites have a love affair with plastic and it’s not only on Valentine Day. Look around and see the ubiquitous water bottles, water sachets, milk sachets, plastic bags, tea cups, and Styrofoam plates. Plastics are in mounds everywhere, from Akkayapalem to Andhra University, from Dabagardens to Dwarakanagar, from RK beach to Railway Station, from Gajuwaka to Gopalpatnam. They lie in heaps - at the tiffin, tea and panipoori shops, stuffed into Vizag’s drains and geddas, strewn across our once pristine beaches, at RTC bus stands, alongside our roads and rail tracks, on every empty plot of land and at temples where prasadam and offerings are made accompanied by some sort of plastic. In fact our beaches today still shows the ravages of the recent Shiva Rathri when lakhs bathed themselves in our sacred bay.

The trouble with plastics

Plastics are a headache to get rid of. They are not soluble in water and they just do not decompose or deteriorate easily. So every time we throw away plastics it just does not “go away”. It remains in the environment for hundreds and hundreds of years. The banana peel or leaf you throw away will decompose in a week or two but the Rs. 15 water bottle you chuck into your back yard will lie there for 450 years!

GVMC awakes

We read in the papers that GVMC, energized by our new commissioner, is going to enforce the ban on plastic bags below 40 microns thick. There is a scientific reason for this but for now we will be polluted with thick plastic instead of thin plastic! The Chief Medical Officer (Health) recently made a presentation on the ill effects of plastic. Which incidentally prompts us to ask - if he knew about the ill effects all along, how come it still plagues Vizag? The commissioner has “appealed” to Vizagites to reduce plastic usage. Do we really think that “appealing” will yield results? Do the authorities not have the laws, the know-how and the mental muscle to control this menace? Controlling plastic pollution is a tricky process but there are some areas where we can get tangible success.

Extended producer responsibility

In many parts of the world the concept of Extended Producer Responsibility or EPR is becoming popular. It is a way to encourage manufacturers of products to take responsibility for their product after it has been used by the consumer. For example, the manufacturer of refrigerators must take responsibility for disposing off the packing safely after the product is delivered to the user. Or the bottled water manufacturer must take responsibility of collecting back the empty bottle and send it for recycling. In the Plastic Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 2011, the Central Government has introduced an Extended Producer’s Responsibility (EPR) clause. According to this clause, the municipal authority may ask manufacturers – either collectively or individually – to provide the finance to establish plastic waste collection centres. Development of recycling centres alongside the waste collection centres should be made compulsory. How can we use this clause? Well let’s start with the usual suspects.

Visakha Dairy’s EPR

Early every morning, when it’s still dark, Visakha Dairy sends out around 6 lakh sachets of 500ml milk into our city! These recyclable Low Density Polyethylene (LDPE) sachets are delivered in refrigerated trucks to distribution points from where the milk is brought to our homes by delivery men on bikes or auto rickshaws. In the homes the sachets are snipped, the milk poured into vessels and the sachets go into the rubbish bin from where some it goes into the municipal waste system and the rest land on our road sides. Now, since Visakha Dairy has a delivery system they could also initiate a collection system. The delivery man takes the empty sachets to the distributor and the truck that delivers the milk takes the empty sachets back to the milk factory. As an incentive everyone in the return chain, including the home that returned the sachets, makes a little money for their effort. And the city keeps crores of plastic sachets off our streets every year!

Water sachets

Water sachets are one of the big polluters. During Visakha Utsav, GVMC provided lakhs of free water sachets. Good thought but an environmental blunder. Just because it was free everyone on the beach consumed a few extra sachets. Most of the empty sachets then landed up on the beach and in our sea. Predominantly small shops sell the sachets and half those who buy it consume the water on the spot. Theoretically the shopkeeper who sells the sachets should be able to collect half the empties in a bin. Then when the distributor comes around delivering fresh stock he should take back the empty sachets. Most of the packaged drinking water sold here is manufactured locally so it won’t be difficult to funnel the empties back to them.

Bottled water and soft drink manufacturers

Bottled water and soft drink manufacturers in Vizag are generally big brands like Bisleri, Kinley, Aquafina, Coca Cola and Pepsi. These brands are backed by large profitable corporations with huge marketing budgets. They have the management skills and the feet on the street to set up a system for collecting back their bottles. All we need is for our GVMC to take a tough stand, flex their legal muscle and resolve to get the job of cleaning up Vizag done.

Everyone must play their part

Vizagites must segregate their garbage at home. Is it all that difficult to have a bin in the kitchen for wet waste and a larger one for dry waste? “But” some people will protest “it will get mixed up again by the garbage collector”. Possible, but that’s exactly why we should ensure that our apartment buildings also have a dry and wet bin in our basement and we should insist that the garbage collector also keeps them segregated. Rag pickers, who are an important chain in the recycling process, are happier picking up segregated dry waste than messy mixed ones. The bottom line, don’t think why it won’t work but how it can be made to work.

Civic bodies like GVMC and APPCB must partner members of the public to form a taskforce with the purpose of reducing plastic pollution. They must do their job by educating the public and enforcing the laws available to them. The government publicity machinery must be especially active during Karthik Masam and religious festivals. A hotline number must be established for concerned citizens to complain about illegal plastic littering and this number must be advertised as widely as the 108 numbers. The sanitary inspector should be empowered to penalize such offenders. To get Vizag sensitized to plastic pollution some areas must be declared as “Plastic Free Zones. Most importantly the Government through the industries department and financial bodies must encourage setting up of many recycling units in the district by offering tax subsidies and easy finance. There is much to be done, but if we all pitch in and show resolve we can win the battle against plastic pollution. Swachh Bharat Zindabad!