Plastic Ban-Belated reaction

[03/09/2005 12:44:33] | [mshinu@gmail.com ]
Plastic Ban-Belated reaction
At last, our government awakening to a plight that has been beleaguered Mumbai for last few decades. It took the government a loss of about 150 human lives and about 5000 crores rupees to react. Was it Plastic bags that caused the 26/7 flooding in Mumbai and the subsequent chaos? Wasn’t our over-burdened and century old infrastructure is not responsible?
Though the city’s Drainage network is century old, the main factor leads to the clogging of these are plastic bags. If you notice where open spaces are digging to lay a pipe or for a new building, under a few inches from the surface you can see a colorful layer. White, Red, Blue & Black. Little faded due to the dirt on them, but still bright and colorful. Imagine a scene after 200 years. Everything changes, but the little plastic demons will outlive all of us and our coming generations. 400 years, they stay intact. 27% of the total wastage Mumbai generates every day is plastic. This is inadvertently gets into the pipe network and clogging them. People carelessly toss these into their own backyard and they get buried under the earth and it blocks the rain water from getting absorbed by earth.
There is a lot of hue and cry from the manufactures of plastic. The reason: Lot of jobs lost. If a product is harmful to the society, it must be banished. If the government gives in to the pressure of plastic manufacture’s pressure tactics, the day is not far when manufactures of other banned substance like Gutkha will plead the same.
The only thing remains to see is how the government plans to implement this law. Proper steps must be taken before enacting it because two years back somewhat same law was passed and after the initial enthusiasm, it died a premature death. Plastic bags under 20 microns are still available freely. The people must be educated about the perils of plastic bag usage and encouraged to use other alternatives through massive awareness programs and stricter norms to control the spread of illegal use. May we are little late to react, but at least for the sake of our coming generations, let’s preserve what is left of our beloved mother Earth. Don’t choke her. Let her breath.