The continuing scourge of plastic

Plastic use has become a thing inseparable from our day to day life. But it has become a great threat to environment. So, the expert committee constituted by the Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals has recommended valuable suggestions to free the society from the Plastic ghost. The important suggestion given by the expert is that the government must ban manufacturing sale and use of single use plastic (SUP)by 2022.

Meanwhile, the gauge of the SUP should be increased to 75 microns from present 50 microns from 30th September 2021 and to 120 microns from 31st December 2022. Though India's average consumption of Plastic is 11 kgs per annum while the world average is 28 kgs. Despite this, it is causing immense problem to environment like making the land infertile and creating health problems to both humans and animals by entering into food chain. So, uncontrolled plastic is finally reaching the ocean thereby there will be more plastic than fish in it by 2050.

It is due to lack of segregation, collection and recycling. As a result of it only 1600 tonnes of plastic is being collected out of 26000 tonnes of plastic waste every day. Thus all the stakeholders must realise the serious threat to environment from plastic. The governments must pay attention on increasing recycling points across the country.

— Pratapa Reddy Yaramala, Tiruvuru