The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : District administration drive a failure

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Mar 14, 2007
ePaper

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

District administration drive a failure

Raghava M. and Swathi Shivanand

Raghava M. and

Swathi Shivanand

BANGALORE: Four years ago, when the Bangalore district administration went on an overdrive booking cases against those manufacturing and selling plastic bags below 20 micron thickness, it was as if the pernicious menace was nearing its end. But after the initial euphoria, the campaign flagged and then vanished from the eternally short public memory.

The city has only seen unhindered use of thin plastic bags and cups, as environmentalists point out. The district administration seems to have done little to discharge the responsibility of enforcing the ban on thin plastic material. The roads and drains strewn with plastic waste in every neighbourhood reveal that the drive has not gone far.

The Environment (Protection) Act 1986 placed on district administrations the responsibility of preventing the use of plastic below 20 microns. This led the then Bangalore Deputy Commissioner to lead the 2003 drive with the help of Karnataka State Pollution Control Board, which gave the measuring equipment and personnel.

Deputy Commissioner M.A. Sadiq says he was not aware of the reasons that led to the drive's failure. "We need to conduct a similar drive," he told The Hindu.

Palike does little

Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has no system in place to segregate plastic from waste. It simply gets dumped in the quarries along with other waste. "A couple of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) might be doing it (segregation), but we have not really looked at it," says Ananth Swamy of the Solid Waste Management section in BBMP. A few years ago, the erstwhile BMP along with a few other NGOs and the Karnataka State Plastic Bag Manufacturers and Traders Association, started a pilot project to segregate plastic waste based on their quality. A chain link involving the pourakarmikas, dealers and the reprocessing units had been started to recycle plastic. But the initiative failed due to lack of support from administration and the pourakarmikas involved in segregating the waste.

According to Pollution Control Board Chairman H.C. Sharatchandra, there are 532 plastic industries in the State, of which 299 were making carry bags and containers. "None of these industries make plastics below 20 microns." He suggested that there could be unlicensed units producing thinner plastic products. "In addition, thin carry bags do come from other States. It is the responsibility of the district administration to take action (against their entry into the State)."

On their part, manufacturers say that the market is flooded with plastics measuring less than 20 microns in thickness. According to them, the thin plastics come mostly from Gujarat and Daman and Diu. This has put them in a quandary and they are denied a level playing field. "It has hit the plastic industry in the State and the manufacturers are finding it unfair," sources said. The law is restricted to only carry bags and no other plastic items. This is a loophole.

Can the Deputy Commissioner check the menace? "He is flooded with work. To have him implement this law too is not practical. It must be delegated to lower levels of authority too. For example, in Mumbai, the traffic policeman was also given the authority to take action against those violating the 20 micron law," a manufacturer said.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Karnataka

News Update

Stories in this Section