CHENNAI: The city will from August 15 enforce a strict ban on plastic bags and other polymer-based items with a thickness of less than 40 microns.Corporation of Chennai proposes to enforce the rule stringently but in a city that generates 429 tonnes of plastic waste per day, second only to Delhi (689 tonnes) in the country, it’s anybody’s guess how successfully the ban will be implemented.Officials say they the ban on plastic has been in force but local bodies will now increase enforcement to ensure compliance with the Plastic Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 2011, which does not permit the use of any plastic of thickness less than 40 microns.“We will take penal action against violators,” a senior government official said. “Because the rules were left to routine enforcement and did not yield any results, we decided will take strict action against offenders.”Sources said the government is also considering to ban, in phases, styrofoam cups and plates, thermocol (polystyrene) cups and plates, aluminium plates and non-woven fabric (polypropylene) material.“We advise people to use bags made of cloth or paper materials instead of non-biodegradable material,” the official said, adding that inspectors would conduct raids across the city from Independence Day.Activists welcomed the government’s move.“The government should completely ban the use of plastic because it has already wreaked such havoc on the environment that the situation is close to irreparable,” environmentalist R Govindaraj said. “Plastic waste has ruined our beaches and lakes and even killed animals that consumed plastic along with leftover food.”The plastic industry is understandably less happy. Chennai Plastic Manufactures and Merchants Association president G Sankaran said a complete ban on plastic is impractical.“This is appears to be an attempt to divert public attention from other issues,” he said. “There are more than 10,000 plastic manufacturers in the state and they employ many thousands of people. A complete ban would doom their livelihood. A ban on plastic items meant for one-time use will also lead to smuggling these items from other states.”Restaurants, hotels, eateries and marriage halls are the biggest generators of plastic waste, experts say.“The corporation has not made any effort so far to follow the plastic waste rules,” an environmentalist said. “It has never fined people who litter public places with plastic.”The corporation in 2011 announced that it planned to relay roads with a combination of plastic and bitumen that it said would make the road surfaces stronger and last longer. The plan went the way of the city’s roads, however, because technical glitches have beset the corporation’s plastic shredding machines.In the Swachh Bharat rankings that the ministry of urban development recently released, Chennai placed at 61 among 476 cities. The city generates a total of 5,000 tonnes of waste every day. The corporation’s abortive attempts at source segregation have not helped matters. High costs recently forced the corporation to shelve its plan to collect segregated garbage from households in four zones, Alandur, Perungudi, Sholinganallur and Valasaravakkam.