IMPLEMENTATION NOWHERE
The scenario with regard to ban on the single-use plastic seems to be abysmal as nothing has been changed in J&K with people selling, buying and using the so-called banned entities without caring about the legal intricacies or the impact. It is pertinent to mention that the Union Government has banned the use of ‘single-use plastic’ from July 1. The Ministry for Environment had issued a gazette notification last year announcing the ban, and has come up with a list of items which have been banned but on ground the situation is akin to that before July 1, 2022 as people have not shunned the use of single-use plastic. This type of plastic, as the name suggests, refers to those items that are used once and discarded. The single use plastic plays a very negative role in damaging nature almost permanently because it is non-biodegradable and remains on the planet for thousands of years thus entering into the food chain and harming the life cycle badly. No doubt the JMC and SMC besides other local civic bodies have started anti-plastic campaigns but it is anybody’s guess that everything which is being done is only for namesake because shops are getting non-stop supply of these items. This can only be possible when the production units are manufacturing the same. With the easy availability of single use plastic and the people using the same as before, it seems that the ban is meant only for paper work because it was a prerequisite for India to go for the ban because it was part of international obligation. The gravity of the situation can be well gauged by the fact that the staff which steers the anti-plastic campaign during office hours uses the same single-use plastic entities when he or she went out to market during the personal visits thus showing the seriousness of the concerned helmsmen because almost every citizen in J&K is using one or the other product having single-use plastic with parallel drives against the same going on simultaneously. The big question is whether the government is serious about the issue or it is just another routine affair to fulfill some of the international commitments? The government should decide and show some consistency in the aforesaid drives because in reality the situation is grim and by taking things lightly the concerned officials and the society are doing a big harm to humanity.