Environmental THE Illusion NONWOVEN BAG 1 About Toxics Link Toxics Link is an Indian environmental research and advocacy organization set up in 1996, engaged in disseminating information to help strengthen the campaign against toxics pollution, provide cleaner alternatives and bring together groups and people affected by this problem. Toxics Link’s Mission Statement - “Working together for environmental justice and freedom from toxics. We have taken upon ourselves to collect and share both information about the sources and the dangers of poisons in our environment and bodies, and information about clean and sustainable alternatives for India and the rest of the world.” Toxics Link has a unique expertise in areas of hazardous, medical and municipal wastes, international waste trade, and the emerging issues of pesticides, Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), hazardous heavy metal contamination etc. from the environment and public health point of view. We have successfully implemented various best practices and have brought in policy changes in the aforementioned areas apart from creating awareness among several stakeholder groups. Acknowledgement We would like to thank Mr. Ravi Agarwal, Director, Toxics Link for his continued guidance and encouragement. We would like to thank Mr. Satish Sinha, Associate Director, Toxics Link who guided us through the entire research process and helped us in shaping the study and the report. Our sincere thanks are also due to all team members of Toxics Link for their valuable inputs and suggestions. Copyright © Toxics Link, 2020 For further information please contact: Study and Report by: Priti Mahesh Inputs: Sherry Pande Vinod Kumar Sharma Toxics Link H2 (Ground Floor), Jungpura Extension New Delhi - 110014, India Phone: 91-11-24328006, 24320711 Fax: 91-11-24321747 www.toxicslink.org Published by Supported by Contents 2 Background 1 Study Framework 7 1.1. Introduction 1 2.1. Objectives 7 1.2. Plastic – An environmental burden 2 2.2. Methodology 7 1.3. Plastic- A cocktail of chemicals 3 2.3. Limitations of the Study 9 1.4. Plastic Bags- Is it only a Visual Polluter? 4 1.5. The Indian scenario: Regulations on Plastic bag usage 5 1.6. Non- Woven Bags 5 Need for this study 6 4 Conclusions 21 Non-woven bags are also plastic bags!! 22 3 Need for action 22 Key Recommendations 23 Findings and Discussion 11 3.1. Ground Reality 12 Plastic bag: Replaced? 12 Popular Replacement 13 Non-woven bag as an alternative 14 3.2. Are NON-WOVEN bags the RIGHT CHOICE? 14 Sampling 14 Testing and Results 16 5 3.3. Non-woven bags- Regulatory framework? 18 Annexure: Field Survey Questionnaire 24 1Background 1.1 Introduction Plastic is considered as one of most But only almost a century after its invention, significant creations of human beings, plastic has gone from being hailed as a a material which made life easier and scientific wonder to being looked down simpler. It was in 1907 that the first modern upon as an environmental concern. The plastic, bakelite, was invented- which very quality of plastic for which it was led the way for the invention of a whole celebrated- its property to last long, its family of synthetic polymers. In the late attribute of durability and non-degradability 1950s and early 1960s, improvements in by natural factors- is now considered as its manufacturing processes brought down biggest drawback. These properties made the cost of plastic production paving the plastic useful for storing and transporting way for cheap mass production and in the items, thereby increasing a product’s shelf real sense of the term, led to the beginning life. But now these very qualities make of an era which can be aptly coined as plastic stay in our environment forever. ‘Plastic Age’. Qualities of plastic like being Plastic does not decay for hundreds of years. lightweight, tough, transparent, malleable The plastic which was produced in 1907, and waterproof made it a wonder material, probably still exists somewhere in the globe resulting in a phenomenal rise in its in some form or the other and so does all the usage and this flexible material put many 9 billion tonnes of plastic produced over the traditional materials like wood, cloth, metal last 6 decades! etc. out of business in many usages. 1 1.2 Plastic – An environmental burden The mass production of plastic started way Humans have produced approximately back in the 1950s, but since the quantum 9 billion tons of plastic since large-scale produced was limited, the waste generated manufacturing of plastics took off in the was also limited. However by the 1990s, 1950s. As per researchers2, out of this 9 plastic production had tripled and hence billion tonnes of plastic that has ever been the amount of plastic waste became huge, produced, as of 2015, about 7 billion tons causing governments and institutions has been disposed of as waste, with only to take note of it and initiate action. But 9 percent of it being recycled, 12 percent the worst was still to come as in the early incinerated, and a whopping 79 percent 2000s, our output of plastic waste rose finding its way into landfills. Many of this, more in a single decade than it had in the of course, finally ends up in our oceans. previous 40 years. And one big reason About 7 billion tons behind this was the proliferation of single- have been disposed of as use plastic. Today, we produce about 300 waste, with only million tonnes of plastic waste every year. That’s nearly equivalent to the weight of the 9% entire human population1! of it being recycled 2 Production, use, and fate of all plastics ever 1 https://www.unenvironment.org/interactive/ made, Roland Geyer, Jenna R. Jambeck and beat-plastic-pollution/ Kara Lavender Law Figure 1: Global primary plastic waste generation (Source: UNEP (2018). SINGLE- USE PLASTICS: A Roadmap for Sustainability) 2 Marine plastic is one of the biggest Significantly large volumes of plastic waste environmental concerns globally, with at and the economic non-viability of recycling least 8 million tons of non-biodegradable of many factions leads to its disposal in material ending up in our oceans every large bodies of water or simply burning year. The main sources of marine plastic them. On burning such waste, emissions are land-based, from urban and storm that are released include heavy metals, runoff, sewer overflows, littering by dioxins and furans and PAHs (Polycyclic beach visitors, inadequate waste disposal aromatic hydrocarbons). The effect of plastic and management, industrial activities, pollution can be increased manifold, if construction and illegal dumping. Under combined with natural and man-made the influence of solar UV radiation, wind, disasters such as tsunami, oil spills, etc. currents and other natural factors, plastic fragments into small particles, and are 1.3 Plastic- A cocktail of termed as microplastics (particles smaller chemicals than 5 mm) or nanoplastics (particles With eight million metric tons of plastic smaller than 100 nm). entering the world’s oceans every year, there The most alarming impacts of marine is growing concern about the proliferation plastics, including macro, micro and nano of plastics in the environment. But, particles are the ingestion, suffocation surprisingly there has been very little focus and entanglement of hundreds of marine on its impact on human health. species. Marine wildlife such as seabirds, Plastic has many additives, used for making whales, fishes and turtles, mistake plastic it flexible, malleable and other properties waste for prey or food, and most die of required for different products. Some of starvation as their stomachs are filled the harmful chemicals used in plastic with plastic debris. Floating plastics also are Bisphenol A, phthalates, and flame contribute to the spread of invasive marine retardants. These are proven Endocrine organisms and bacteria, which disrupt Chemical Disruptors (EDCs)3 and many have ecosystems. been linked to cancer and reproductive Microplastics have now been detected in all problems. The chemicals added to plastics oceans, including the Arctic- suggesting that easily spread into the surrounding probably there are no corners in the globe environment as the plastic breaks down, left untouched from this plastic form. Its posing an ever-increasing risk to water, soil detection in tap water, salt and even human or body tissue where plastic is present. faeces is clearly indicative that the plastic Plastic degrading in the ocean or on land waste that we have created for the last seven builds up in the food chain as it is ingested decades is coming right back to us. Plastics by larger animals. The plastic both leaches can also function as carriers of invasive the chemicals it already contained into species or alien species thereby altering the ecology of a place. 3 http://toxicslink.org/docs/Paper%20on%20 EDC%20-%20for_web.pdf 3 the environment and accumulates other blockages in drainage systems from plastic toxic chemicals present in the environment shopping bags. Plastic shopping bags also as it works its way up the food chain. pose health risks to human populations over Contaminants that can be attracted to the years as they leach toxins into water plastic surfaces include Persistent Organic supplies. Pollutants (POPs)4 like PCBs and DDT Plastic bags are also problematic to at high concentrations. Since different recycle. Bags of less than 50 microns are chemicals are present in the marine not commonly picked up for recycling- the environment, such as in the sediments, reasons being economic as well as the water column, plastics and biota, in conditions in which these are dumped. Most different concentrations, their interactions of these bags actually end up in landfills and possible synergic effects have to be and sit there for hundreds of years.