Clean Plastics Waste as School Fees

Sustainability Challenges

for the Global Plastics Industry

Vijay Merchant

Chairman, Polycraft Group, Mumbai

A commitment that we will work as one responsible industry sector across all economies, will help find long range sustainable solutions that are practical and appreciated by the entire world, soon.

The plastics industry, the world over, has been facing the specter of ‘sustainability’ in the last 5 or 6 years since some leading champions of the environment and economists, mostly based in the west, have blamed it for using up non-renewable resources of our planet and doing little to address the nuisance of litter and colossal waste. The plastics sector has been blamed for meeting ‘needs of today but not caring for the needs of tomorrow’ and, thereby, not playing a responsible role in caring for ‘sustainable development’ which is so vital for humans and also for controlling the most feared climate change worries across the world.

To move towards sustainable plastics waste management and beat the plastics pollution problems, the nations of the world have to work as one on many fronts, from better systems of waste collection, material development and standardisation of items in order to facilitate economically viable plastics recycling locally, to increased consumer awareness and behaviour change, to policy development that incentivises a circular economy and ensures best use of all resources.

Plastics - A True Warrior

While the demands of reducing plastics use and recycling waste may have been put on the back burner by leaders in 2020 due to COVID-19 (a respite), it will be renewed. It was only with COVID-19 pandemic when the world realised the huge contribution that plastics has made since early March, 2020 as it was protecting thousands of frontline workers from infections, while saving lives of those infected due to deadly virus. Plastics has been acknowledged as serving the citizens of the entire world in last 14 months. Global leaders agree now that it would have been impossible to fight the pandemic if it had not been for plastics with vital PPE (personal protective equipment) kits, disposable masks, gloves, aprons and disposable syringes for the massive vaccine drives globally. To move towards sustainable plastics waste management and beat the plastics pollution problems, the nations of the world have to work as one on many fronts, from better systems of waste collection, material development and standardisation of items in order to facilitate economically viable plastics recycling locally, to increased consumer awareness and behaviour change, to policy development that incentivises a circular economy and ensures best use of all resources.

A Macro Topic

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