Himachal coming up with a plastic buy back policy
Himachal Pradesh is facing the major Environmental challenge of disposal of non-recyclable plastic waste urgently needed to put urban local bodies in the loop of extended producers’ responsibility mechanism and to adopt a plastic buy-back policy.
This was stated by Mr Anil Joshi (IFS) Member Secretary Himachal Pradesh State Pollution Control Board represented this hill state in the 3rd Plastic recycling conference Asia 2023 held in Mumbai during 26-28 April 2023.
Sharing the status of the state in ensuring scientific disposal of waste management including plastic waste management (recyclable and non-recyclable) he accepted that the challenge before the state is not meeting 100 pet-cent segregation of waste, collection, and transportation in hilly regions, and also the need of conducting a compositional survey of waste in ULBs.
Highlighting the challenges being faced by the state in managing the scientific disposal of solid and plastic waste along with gaps in the existing policy Mr. Joshi said that Himachal Pradesh is implementing the EPR guidelines for managing plastic packing waste.
He also pointed out that there is an urgent need of putting ULBs in the loop of the EPR Mechanism and boosting the implementation of the Plastic Buy Back Policy of the State for no-recyclable plastic waste. He further stressed bridging the existing gap in the EPR mechanism in the procurement of EPR Certificates with respect to State-specific targets for Producers, Importers, and Brand Owners (PIBOs).
MS interacting with entrepreneurs dealing with plastic waste recycling sought their investments in the state.
Participating in the panel discussion he informed that Himachal is a pioneer in dealing with plastic waste management after bringing legislation namely Himachal Pradesh Non-biodegradable Garbage Control Act, way back in 1995.
Since then the State has taken the lead on plastic waste management by banning all types of Plastic Carry Bags in 2009 and banned single-use plastic items in 2018 even before the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Govt. of India’s notification of 2021.
Now State also took the lead in implementing the innovative Plastic buyback policy in 2019 to deal with non-recyclable plastic waste and following EPR guidelines to involve producers and brands to collect the plastic waste through the EPR mechanism, he added.
