Why in News?

• The document titled “The Plastic Life-Cycle” has recently stated that India is not collecting and recycling its polymer waste properly.

Highlights

• The document highlighted that unless the entire life cycle of plastic, from source to disposal, is not together considered as the root cause of the pollution it causes, the problem is not going away.
• Unlike other forms of waste like paper, food peels, leaves etc., which are biodegradable (capable of being decomposed by bacteria or other living organisms) in nature, plastic waste because of its non-biodegradable nature persists into the environment, for hundreds (or even thousands) of years
• Microplastics are small plastic pieces of less than five millimeters in size.
• Microplastic includes microbeads (solid plastic particles of less than one millimeter in their largest dimension) that are used in cosmetics and personal care products, industrial scrubbers, microfibers used in textiles and virgin resin pellets used in plastic manufacturing processes.
• Due to sun exposure and physical wear, large pieces of plastic that were not recycled break up to produce microplastics.
• Single-use plastic is a disposable material that can be used only once before it is either thrown away or recycled, like plastic bags, water bottles, soda bottles, straws, plastic plates, cups, most food packaging and coffee stirrers are sources of single use plastic.
• The collection of plastic waste is the responsibility of local government bodies, producers, importers and brand owners.
• However, plastic waste in India is collected mostly by ragpickers, rather than the authorities. As high as 42% – 86% of the plastic waste in India flows through the informal sector to material recovery facilities operated by multinational corporations in partnership with local governments or otherwise.
• The Indian government claims that the country is recycling 60% of its plastic waste. However, this is limited to specific types of polymers (plastics) like PET bottles.
• As per a statistical analysis done by Centre for Science and Environment using Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) ’s data, India is merely recycling (through mechanical recycling) 12% of its plastic waste.