Importance

India generates nearly 26,000 tonnes of plastic waste every day, making it the 15th biggest plastic polluter globally. Discarded plastic waste litter the country’s roads, rivers and also form huge mounds in garbage dumps across the country. “The rubbish dump I frequent is filled mostly with plastic,” Ram Kumar, a ragpicker in Noida, near New Delhi, told Quartz. “Bottles, containers, and polythene bags are some of the items I routinely gather from here (to sell to recyclers).”

 

During the monsoon, plastic bottles at the dump accumulate water and are a breeding ground for mosquitoes. Besides the stench, the site poses a major health hazard for the area’s residents, exposing them to the mosquito-borne diseases. Many a times, the solid waste has been put on fire by the municipal agency, polluting the air. It can also be fatal for the stray animals, mainly cows and dogs that end up mistaking plastic for food. 

 

The government has made intervention plans for to gradually eradicate or Online retail and food-delivery apps are also contributing to the widening use of plastic, though there are no authoritative data on this. In a September 2018 blog, Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal said “orders through food-delivery aggregators was adding up to 22,000 tonnes of plastic waste every month in India.” It’s now reported that the government is in the process of introducing a national policy framework on plastic management. 

 

Needless to say that this may not amount to much without successful implementation.

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Reference: https://qz.com/india/1693117/indias-plastic-waste-crisis-is-too-big-even-for-modi/