14 ms·

Instead, government could've imposed ban on the consumer products which are wrapped using plastic material. Almost 50% plastic come directly from such consumer

Instead, government could've imposed ban on the consumer products which are wrapped using plastic material. Almost 50% plastic come directly from such consumer products sold by all FMCG companies. Such plastic material which is used as a wrapper (e.g. mineral bottles, wrappers of chocolates, biscuits, wafers, tobacco, etc.) is often useless and people tend to throw it right away. I agree that "we", the people need to take a pledge to stop using plastic as much as we can. But if there's no restriction put on giant FMCG companies such as Hindustan Unilever, ITC, Patanjali, Netsle, Procter and Gamble, etc. from supplying their products wrapped in plastic, I consider all of these government initiatives merely as a gimmick. EDIT 1: Another comment I left on this thread - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17400028 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17400028. EDIT 2: In India, plastic is a major contributor of blocking sewers and rivers, especially in rainy seasons. Another important problem plastic waste produces is that since government bodies (such as, municipal corporations, gram panchayats, etc.) are unable to dump and/or recycle plastic waste properly, it is accidentally consumed by animals and is the major reason for their deaths. Another issue is that, often "dumping waste" is considered as "burning" it. Burning plastic waste disturbs healthy air and is a major factor among others responsible for the increased air pollution in Indian cities recently.

whistlerbrk 8y ago
Why not both? It could make what you want easier to do down the road once the public sees they too can live without
omk 8y ago
AFAIK product packing is also included in the ban. The articles here state that plastic used for storage and packing of goods is also banned. Including packing of tooth brushes. https://www.firstpost.com/india/maharashtra-ban-war-on-plastic-bags-and-throwaways-are-an-indulgence-but-a-guiltless-dependence-on-straws-will-sink-the-planet-4576851.html https://www.firstpost.com/india/maharashtra-ban-war-on-plast... http://www.freepressjournal.in/mumbai/maharashtra-plastic-ban-all-you-need-to-know-about-the-ban/1253541 http://www.freepressjournal.in/mumbai/maharashtra-plastic-ba...
- kamaal 8y ago
  This is more or less impossible impose given how good and things move around in India. After a while it will just be a joke, and another bribe making scheme for audit/police.
  - omk 8y ago
    It's tricky to bribe out of the situation especially if your product is being sold out there in the open. Your competition will tell on you or your consumers will notice.
    - kamaal 8y ago
      You have to understand how things work in India. You competition will not tell on you and you customer want you to use plastic.
mekazu 8y ago
Plastic is sometimes useful to preserve fresh food to some degree. Without plastic many goods wouldn’t be viable. Would be nice though if at least the necessary plastic was highly recycleable, as well as cost efficient etc.
- mrfusion 8y ago
  My thoughts exactly. How will they sell ground meat, mayonase, salad dressing?
  - beauzero 8y ago
    Go to a butcher and get it in paper. Make your own mayo...it's an egg, veg oil, and a little salt and pepper...store in glass. Salad dressing...store in glass. Metal tops. Pretty much the packaging up until the 70's.
    - hw 8y ago
      +1. The prices of meat at the butcher section is usually the same as the one in the pre-packaged meat section. As for mayo, maybe just eat less of it as it isn't exactly healthy. Or get the ones in glass bottles. Same goes with salad dressing.
- hw 8y ago
  There are grocery stores (like Sprouts in my area) that sell fresh food like produce that aren't packed in plastic. They're all loose items that you just pick up and put into your own bag (which hopefully is either plastic that you reuse, or just a cloth bag). Then there are some grocery stores that pack most of their produce like vegetables all in plastic. If no plastic works for one, I don't see how it's necessary for the other.
FactolSarin 8y ago
Just because it doesn't completely solve everything, that doesn't mean it isn't a step in the right direction.
- vishaltelangre 8y ago
  Imposing a ban on "public" and practically making sure that it is followed by the huge population of India is really difficult. We have seen such bans imposed on public before, and none of them were successful till the date. On the other hand, keeping an eye on the handful of (big) companies to restrict them from supplying plastic to people is comparatively an easy task and requires less (man, money and infrastructure) power. Besides, government(s) can also think of funding research program(s) to synthesize an eco-friendly material alternative to plastic which can be produced with same cost as of plastic; or funding program(s) to at least efficiently recycle plastic directly proportional to its growing usage.
  - EGreg 8y ago
    Arent there eco friendly alternatives already?
    - Lunatic666 8y ago
      I remember that in Germany you can buy bags made from corn starch, but they're very thin and very fragile. You need to be really lucky to bring home your shopping bags safely and you definitely cannot reuse them. But you can put them on the compost, which is really cool! If they work on making it a little more robust, bags like that would be my first choice
      - azinman2 8y ago
        What’s wrong with paper? They’re strong, biodegradable, and can use tree types that can be quickly grown.
        jdietrich 8y ago
gexla 8y ago
I live in the Philippines. The trash you see everywhere, in the streets and in the rivers is plastic bags and bottles. It sees that packaging actually makes its way to the dump.
mrtksn 8y ago
Wouldn't that create fragmentation in production, therefore possibly significant price increases due to the need of retooling of packaging and distribution? Such measures work when done in the rich world with very large markets, for example, companies increase their standards due to EU regulations because they find that it's cheaper to retool themselves according to the EU and sell everywhere even if EU standards are not imposed everywhere, instead of maintaining two standards or losing the EU market altogether.
jdietrich 8y ago
>Instead, government could've imposed ban on the consumer products which are wrapped using plastic material. Almost 50% plastic come directly from such consumer products sold by all FMCG companies. Such plastic material which is used as a wrapper (e.g. mineral bottles, wrappers of chocolates, biscuits, wafers, tobacco, etc.) is often useless and people tend to throw it right away. Broadly speaking, that would be a terrible backwards step for the environment. Plastic packaging often reduces waste by protecting the product from spoilage and damage. A lot of people bemoan the plastic wrapping on cucumbers, but that wrapping doubles the shelf life of the product. It's a net win, because the environmental impact of wasted cucumbers is far greater than the environmental impact of a gram or two of polyethylene wrapping. Many people argue that milk should be sold in re-usable glass containers rather than disposable bottles or cartons, but the environmental case is really marginal. The glass bottle is considerably more energy-intensive to produce and transport, with more energy used to collect and wash it for re-use. Returnable glass bottles are often worse than disposable plastic if the transport distance is too great and/or the breakage rate is too high. In many cases, the best option is reusable plastic bottles, which are less energy-intensive to manufacture, lighter to transport and more durable than glass. Plastic is a wonderful material that has an important role to play in a sustainable economy. There has been a huge increase in the quality and availability of bio-based and biodegradable plastics in the packaging industry. We have irrationally demonised a very useful material, creating a huge distraction from much more serious environmental problems. If you buy a beef steak wrapped in plastic, the problem is the steak, not the wrapper. The plastic wrapper produced ~10g of CO2 and required ~100ml of water to produce; the steak produced ~7kg of CO2 and required ~4,000 litres of water to produce. As long as it is disposed of responsibly, a whole trash bag full of plastic packaging has a negligible environmental impact compared to a single portion of beef.
- nafey 8y ago
  > It's a net win, because the environmental impact of wasted cucumbers is far greater than the environmental impact of a gram or two of polyethylene wrapping. Will need citation for that.
  - jdietrich 8y ago
ekianjo 8y ago
> is often useless and people tend to throw it right away. It's not useless per se. Packaging makes things look bigger on shelves and it gives a better perception of value for certain items (or makes them more visible on shelves). The good thing is that is going to become less and less relevant as we move more and more towards online shopping - I hope that at some point we just get a white box when its shipped directly from a warehouse.
willio58 8y ago
Why instead? Why not in addition?
hw 8y ago
"Almost 50% plastic come directly from such consumer products sold by all FMCG companies. Such plastic material which is used as a wrapper (e.g. mineral bottles, wrappers of chocolates, biscuits, wafers, tobacco, etc.) is often useless and people tend to throw it right away." I don't think this is going away until cities and states and government start doing something about this. Plastic bag banning is great, but it doesn't solve the entire equation. Plastic wrapping is just too convenient and preserves the lifetime of the product better than, say, paper. The transluscency of plastics also make it ideal for packaging food like meat, sushi, iced drinks, bread etc where being able to see the product is important. It also keeps in liquids nicely. Someone needs to come up with an alternative to plastic that's biodegradable while still keeping plastic's properties that make it useful for packaging. I think that's going to be a huge industry. Landfills in my city are filling up and we're resorting to shipping some out to other cities. People like their plastic but yet complain when the city garbage rates go up every year.
- davidhyde 8y ago
  You can already buy bags made from plant material (tuber and tapioca is popular). The fact that they are 3x the price and less durable than petroleum-based bags is probably because they have seen less research and mass production. This can change. I use them to chuck out the cat litter.
snambi 8y ago
Probably the next move is banning all FMCG. We got used to the garbage such as soap, tooth paste etc. But I think we will be fine if they are not available.
ryanx435 8y ago
Nothing is ever good enough for HN users, is it? A step in the right direction is always bad here in the comments.
megablast 8y ago
Why instead? Why not both?

whistlerbrk 8y ago

Why not both? It could make what you want easier to do down the road once the public sees they too can live without

omk 8y ago

AFAIK product packing is also included in the ban. The articles here state that plastic used for storage and packing of goods is also banned. Including packing of tooth brushes. https://www.firstpost.com/india/maharashtra-ban-war-on-plastic-bags-and-throwaways-are-an-indulgence-but-a-guiltless-dependence-on-straws-will-sink-the-planet-4576851.html https://www.firstpost.com/india/maharashtra-ban-war-on-plast... http://www.freepressjournal.in/mumbai/maharashtra-plastic-ban-all-you-need-to-know-about-the-ban/1253541 http://www.freepressjournal.in/mumbai/maharashtra-plastic-ba...

kamaal 8y ago
This is more or less impossible impose given how good and things move around in India. After a while it will just be a joke, and another bribe making scheme for audit/police.
- omk 8y ago
  It's tricky to bribe out of the situation especially if your product is being sold out there in the open. Your competition will tell on you or your consumers will notice.
  - kamaal 8y ago
    You have to understand how things work in India. You competition will not tell on you and you customer want you to use plastic.

mekazu 8y ago

Plastic is sometimes useful to preserve fresh food to some degree. Without plastic many goods wouldn’t be viable. Would be nice though if at least the necessary plastic was highly recycleable, as well as cost efficient etc.

mrfusion 8y ago
My thoughts exactly. How will they sell ground meat, mayonase, salad dressing?
- beauzero 8y ago
  Go to a butcher and get it in paper. Make your own mayo...it's an egg, veg oil, and a little salt and pepper...store in glass. Salad dressing...store in glass. Metal tops. Pretty much the packaging up until the 70's.
  - hw 8y ago
    +1. The prices of meat at the butcher section is usually the same as the one in the pre-packaged meat section. As for mayo, maybe just eat less of it as it isn't exactly healthy. Or get the ones in glass bottles. Same goes with salad dressing.
hw 8y ago
There are grocery stores (like Sprouts in my area) that sell fresh food like produce that aren't packed in plastic. They're all loose items that you just pick up and put into your own bag (which hopefully is either plastic that you reuse, or just a cloth bag). Then there are some grocery stores that pack most of their produce like vegetables all in plastic. If no plastic works for one, I don't see how it's necessary for the other.

FactolSarin 8y ago

Just because it doesn't completely solve everything, that doesn't mean it isn't a step in the right direction.

vishaltelangre 8y ago
Imposing a ban on "public" and practically making sure that it is followed by the huge population of India is really difficult. We have seen such bans imposed on public before, and none of them were successful till the date. On the other hand, keeping an eye on the handful of (big) companies to restrict them from supplying plastic to people is comparatively an easy task and requires less (man, money and infrastructure) power. Besides, government(s) can also think of funding research program(s) to synthesize an eco-friendly material alternative to plastic which can be produced with same cost as of plastic; or funding program(s) to at least efficiently recycle plastic directly proportional to its growing usage.
- EGreg 8y ago
  Arent there eco friendly alternatives already?
  - Lunatic666 8y ago
    I remember that in Germany you can buy bags made from corn starch, but they're very thin and very fragile. You need to be really lucky to bring home your shopping bags safely and you definitely cannot reuse them. But you can put them on the compost, which is really cool! If they work on making it a little more robust, bags like that would be my first choice
    - azinman2 8y ago
      What’s wrong with paper? They’re strong, biodegradable, and can use tree types that can be quickly grown.
      - jdietrich 8y ago

gexla 8y ago

I live in the Philippines. The trash you see everywhere, in the streets and in the rivers is plastic bags and bottles. It sees that packaging actually makes its way to the dump.

mrtksn 8y ago

Wouldn't that create fragmentation in production, therefore possibly significant price increases due to the need of retooling of packaging and distribution? Such measures work when done in the rich world with very large markets, for example, companies increase their standards due to EU regulations because they find that it's cheaper to retool themselves according to the EU and sell everywhere even if EU standards are not imposed everywhere, instead of maintaining two standards or losing the EU market altogether.

jdietrich 8y ago

>Instead, government could've imposed ban on the consumer products which are wrapped using plastic material. Almost 50% plastic come directly from such consumer products sold by all FMCG companies. Such plastic material which is used as a wrapper (e.g. mineral bottles, wrappers of chocolates, biscuits, wafers, tobacco, etc.) is often useless and people tend to throw it right away. Broadly speaking, that would be a terrible backwards step for the environment. Plastic packaging often reduces waste by protecting the product from spoilage and damage. A lot of people bemoan the plastic wrapping on cucumbers, but that wrapping doubles the shelf life of the product. It's a net win, because the environmental impact of wasted cucumbers is far greater than the environmental impact of a gram or two of polyethylene wrapping. Many people argue that milk should be sold in re-usable glass containers rather than disposable bottles or cartons, but the environmental case is really marginal. The glass bottle is considerably more energy-intensive to produce and transport, with more energy used to collect and wash it for re-use. Returnable glass bottles are often worse than disposable plastic if the transport distance is too great and/or the breakage rate is too high. In many cases, the best option is reusable plastic bottles, which are less energy-intensive to manufacture, lighter to transport and more durable than glass. Plastic is a wonderful material that has an important role to play in a sustainable economy. There has been a huge increase in the quality and availability of bio-based and biodegradable plastics in the packaging industry. We have irrationally demonised a very useful material, creating a huge distraction from much more serious environmental problems. If you buy a beef steak wrapped in plastic, the problem is the steak, not the wrapper. The plastic wrapper produced ~10g of CO2 and required ~100ml of water to produce; the steak produced ~7kg of CO2 and required ~4,000 litres of water to produce. As long as it is disposed of responsibly, a whole trash bag full of plastic packaging has a negligible environmental impact compared to a single portion of beef.

nafey 8y ago
> It's a net win, because the environmental impact of wasted cucumbers is far greater than the environmental impact of a gram or two of polyethylene wrapping. Will need citation for that.
- jdietrich 8y ago

ekianjo 8y ago

> is often useless and people tend to throw it right away. It's not useless per se. Packaging makes things look bigger on shelves and it gives a better perception of value for certain items (or makes them more visible on shelves). The good thing is that is going to become less and less relevant as we move more and more towards online shopping - I hope that at some point we just get a white box when its shipped directly from a warehouse.

willio58 8y ago

Why instead? Why not in addition?

hw 8y ago

"Almost 50% plastic come directly from such consumer products sold by all FMCG companies. Such plastic material which is used as a wrapper (e.g. mineral bottles, wrappers of chocolates, biscuits, wafers, tobacco, etc.) is often useless and people tend to throw it right away." I don't think this is going away until cities and states and government start doing something about this. Plastic bag banning is great, but it doesn't solve the entire equation. Plastic wrapping is just too convenient and preserves the lifetime of the product better than, say, paper. The transluscency of plastics also make it ideal for packaging food like meat, sushi, iced drinks, bread etc where being able to see the product is important. It also keeps in liquids nicely. Someone needs to come up with an alternative to plastic that's biodegradable while still keeping plastic's properties that make it useful for packaging. I think that's going to be a huge industry. Landfills in my city are filling up and we're resorting to shipping some out to other cities. People like their plastic but yet complain when the city garbage rates go up every year.

davidhyde 8y ago
You can already buy bags made from plant material (tuber and tapioca is popular). The fact that they are 3x the price and less durable than petroleum-based bags is probably because they have seen less research and mass production. This can change. I use them to chuck out the cat litter.

snambi 8y ago

Probably the next move is banning all FMCG. We got used to the garbage such as soap, tooth paste etc. But I think we will be fine if they are not available.

ryanx435 8y ago

Nothing is ever good enough for HN users, is it? A step in the right direction is always bad here in the comments.

megablast 8y ago

Why instead? Why not both?