Amazon, Britannia Industries and Indo Nissin Foods are among many companies that have been directed to put in place a system to collect plastic generated by their products.
The Karnataka State Pollution Control Board has decided to get cracking on the Plastic Waste Management Rules, 2016, which includes imposing the Extended Producers' Responsibility (EPR) on manufacturers, sellers and importers.
Getting companies to assume responsibility for managing waste coming from their products is important and necessary for Bengaluru, experts say. Necessary because the city struggles to deal with low-value, multilayered plastic that cannot be reused or recycled.Bengaluru is believed to generate over 3,000 tonnes of waste daily , 100150 tonnes of which is unusable plastic that end up in landfills.
Representatives from 100 companies across sectors met KSPCB chairman Lakshman recently.“They have to register with us under the rules immediately . We've given them a grace period of one month.They have to give us details of their products and packaging materials.Once they register, it's their responsibility to collect plastic from endusers," Lakshman told ET.
According to the rules, the primary responsibility for collection of used multi layered plastic sachets or pouches or packaging is of producers, importers and brand owners. While companies have a year's time to submit their plan to the authorities, they are required to phase out the use and manufacture of non-recyclable multi layered plastic in two years.
Honda, Toyota, Aditya Birla, Micro Labs, Robert Bosch, 3M India, MTR and A2B are some of the other companies that fall under the EPR, Lakshman said. While most companies declined to comment, an Amazon spokesperson said: “We are evaluating the rules and have no fur ther comments on the matter at this point in time."
EPR first emerged in the early 1990s in Germany, Sweden, France and other European nations.However, it is only in the last decade that EPR is increasingly recognised worldwide as an efficient waste management policy, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
“Most of the packaging material for products is multilayered plastic with aluminium lining such as chips packets and chocolate wrappers. Most of it has to be landfilled, and we see that 60% of the plastic waste dumped in Mandur and Mavallipura are multilayered plastic," solid waste management expert V Ramprasad said.
