Plastic tax

One of the biggest solid waste management challenges facing any City relates to disposing the huge quantities of plastics, especially those coming from disposable shopping bags. The website reusablebags.com claims that in January almost 42 billion plastic bags were used worldwide, and the figure increases by more than half a million bags every minute. A vast majority are not reused, ending up as waste — in landfills or as litter. Because plastic bags are light and compressible, they constitute only 2 percent of landfill, but since most are not bio-degradable, they will remain there. Many approaches have been adopted to tackle the plastic bag challenge, but with limited success. But Ireland, as with many other things, has had a different experience with a plastics tax.

In 2002, Ireland introduced a tax on plastic bags, with customers wanting a plastic bag having to pay 33 cents at the cash register. The results have been nothing short of remarkable, with plastic bag use dropping by over 94% in a few weeks itself. Coupled with an aggressive awareness campaign, this has ushered in a revolution in shopping experience, as using plastic bags has now become socially unacceptable.

While this is not likely to achieve similar success in countries like India, it can be tried out in the fast expanding organized retail market. In fact, the organized retailers association can take up elimination of plastic shopping bags as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) campaign. A host of options are available - refundable deposit, tax, and outright ban. There can be a local solution, instead of a single, one-size-fits-all prescription.