Street vendors and small traders biggest violators of the ban

The city’s garbage dumpyards at Perungudi and Kodungaiyur continue to receive plastics every day from bins, door-to-door collection and street sweeping. This, despite the ban on single-use plastics, in place since January 1.

“Though over 80% of the 140-odd licensed manufacturing units in the State have shifted to manufacturing permissible plastic items and the others have just shut shop and left, banned plastics seem to be available in the market. From where they come, one cannot say. But the ban has led to the shutting down of legitimate units and seems to have facilitated illegal trade,” said B. Swaminathan of the Tamil Nadu Plastics Manufacturers' Association.

This is due to the fact that most of the 27,195 enumerated street vendors and a large number of licensed traders continue to use banned plastics in various parts of the city. After the ban, the bigger shops, including supermarkets, switched to cloth or jute bags. A section of consumers too converted. “It is the small trader and road-side shops that are finding it difficult to switch. If banana leaves were available in place of plastic covers, flower vendors would gladly change back to leaves. But those are not available. Similarly, alternatives that are available in the market are not cheap or easily accessible. MNCs that use multi-layer plastics for packaging have also not been reined in by the ban,” said A.M.Vikramaraja, president, Tamil Nadu Vanigar Sangankalin Peramaippu. “Though many residents have switched to carrying cloth bags and associations are working towards reducing garbage going to dumpyards, banned plastics are still being used by street vendors and small shops. This is because alternatives to banned plastics are not affordable and these banned items are still easily available. The government should explore alternatives to plastic bags for customers,” said V.S. Jayaraman, of T. Nagar Residents Welfare Association.

Nungambakkam resident N. Ramesh said the government should advise retail shops to give the customers bags made of newspaper to carry the items they buy. “The retail outlets sell poor quality cloth bags for ₹15, making a profit from the sale of such bags. This is unethical. The shopkeepers refuse to even wrap products in a newspaper. I request the government to intervene and direct the civic agencies to regulate such practices,” said Babu, another resident.

Enforcement on

For its part, the Greater Chennai Corporation’s sanitary inspectors have seized 264 tonnes of banned plastics from 2.63 lakh premises across the city in the past eight months, collecting ₹55.04 lakh as penalties.

Officials in zones such as Kodambakkam, Royapuram, Anna Nagar, Adyar, Perungudi and Valasaravakkam have seized the largest quantities of banned plastic products. Chennai Corporation has claimed that the seized plastics were being shredded for road relaying. But the banned plastics have not been used for relaying most stretches in the city in the past few months, officials said. Inadequate manpower, particularly among sanitary inspectors, has led to challenges in enforcement of the ban, they pointed out.

Officials also estimated the quantum of banned plastics sent to dumpyards had come down. However, there is no study on how much it has come down by. “The quantum of banned plastics reaching dumpyards has reportedly reduced by 50%. We will carry out a waste characterisation study shortly,” said N. Mahesan, Chief Engineer (Solid Waste Management). Former DMK councillor Deva Jawahar said the civic body was unable to enforce the ban on plastics because of the transport of banned plastics from neighbouring States and purchases by small traders.

Municipal Administration and Water Supply Department secretary Harmander Singh said the department was taking steps to implement the ban. “A huge quantity of plastic has been seized and fines imposed. All big fruit and vegetable shops and retail showrooms have changed to non-plastic materials. So it will be wrong to say plastic has come back. It is a big challenge and everyone, including media, has to play a role. Our drive against plastic continues,” he said.