- When the Centre published the Plastic Waste Management (PWM) Rules in 2016, a key element of it was “Extended Producer Responsibility” or EPR.
- The idea of EPR was to make the polluter pay.
- So, all sellers of plastic packaging were required to, within six months, install a system to collect their waste.
- Two years later, after much confusion about how EPR would work, experts say companies have finally begun to take baby steps.
- It’s a small start, and not enough to make a dent on the problem of India’s annual plastic waste of 7-9 million tonnes (CPCB estimates).
- Only about 45 companies have submitted their EPR plans to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), whereas the total number of such companies runs into several thousands.
- The idea of EPR is extremely critical to waste management.
- Today, India’s recycling sector is mostly informal, and consists of waste pickers and kabadiwallahs.
- With little help from municipal bodies, they are able to recycle almost 80% of a type of plastic called Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET).
- But the system is still inefficient, and almost half of the estimated 7-9 million tonnes of plastic doesn’t get picked up by the informal sector.
- This includes multi layered packaging (MLP) which doesn’t fetch waste pickers much money, because it can’t be recycled.
