Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation tweaks its plastic plan

Hyderabad: The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) plans to encourage local women’s groups and MSMEs to manufacture alternatives to single-use plastic products.

The civic body has tied up with ICLEI South Asia to reorient its action plan on curtailing the single use plastics. ICLEI South Asia has developed the strategy taking into consideration consumption of plastic and the collection, processing and scientific disposal of plastic waste.

“The main takeaway is that not all plastics are bad and the plastic ban doesn't mean ban on every plastic. What is important is that the plastic consumed should be recycled and disposed off responsibly where it is integrated into the recycling loop. Alternatives to plastic should be accessible and affordable to the public.

These alternativesshould be upscaled to a commercially profitable level,” said Ms Hari Chandana, IAS, zonal commissioner, Serilingampally Zone at a workshop on Friday.

Under this project, the current status of plastic waste management in GHMC has been assessed in detail. The project is in its second phase where the emphasis is on reducing the generation and consumption of plastic waste with a focus on single-use plastic and promoting the recycling of plastic waste.

It has decided to ensure segregation, storage and collection of plastic waste both recyclable and non-recyclable, scientific processing of plastic waste including recycling, plastic to fuels and plastics to bituminous pavements and waste to energy.

Ms. Sikta Patnaik, IAS, additional commissioner  said it would be difficult to convince local women’s groups to take up the manufacture of alternative products (cloth and jute bags) due to the present financial viability of the same. “Solutions to this should be a focus,” she said.

Mr. Srinivas Reddy, zonal commissioner, Charminar zone, said addressing the demand of single-use plastic by street vendors due to the lack of affordability of alternatives is a challenge.  “More R&D and industrial innovation is necessary to promote the manufacture of alternatives from small scale units,” he said.

According to Dr Premak-umara Jagath Dickella Ga-maralalage, programme manager, IGES, “Source reduction is critical in order to reduce single-use plastic. Other steps to improve plastic waste management include restriction of microbeads in cosmetics, promotion of EPR as aneconomic tool to merge production with the plastic waste value-chain, and the involvement of stakeholders.”

Dr. Yoichi Kodera, expert from Japan, AIP, “Availab-ility of commercially viable technologies and favourable business conditions are critical to establish plastic waste processing businesses.”