Centre issues instructions to States to phase out Single Use Plastic (SUP)
In line with its commitment to ban Single Use Plastic, the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs (MoHUA) has come out with a detailed advisory for States and UTs to carry out a range of activities to meet this goal. These activities include large scale cleaning as well as plogging drives, with emphasis on plastic waste collection apart from tree plantation drives. All these activities will be carried out with participation from all the citizens, voluntary organisations, students, local NGOs/CSOs, NCC Cadets, NSS, RWAs, corporate entities, self-help groups, etc.
The advisory encompasses a wide range of suggested initiatives under the Swachh Bharat Mission – Urban 2.0. Under this initiative it is required to adopt 100% source segregation of waste besides having access to a Material Recovery Facility (MRF) for sorting the plastic waste apart from various other dry waste for recycling and processing.
In accordance with the PWM (Amended) Rules, 2021 a range of complementary initiatives will also be taken up to strengthen the enforcement. For example the corporate entities, dealing with bottled drinks shall be requested to create Bottle Banks (the users can be paid for dropping the empty PET bottles), besides setting up booth of subsidized reusable plastic bottle across different locations apart from establishing Thaila (bag) or Bartan (Utensils) kiosks, etc to reduce single use plastic consumption.
