Maharashtra Government to Implement Plastic Buyback Scheme from July 11

Water and air are the two essential elements that are required to sustain life. Now they have become global garbage cans as they are being littered with plastics. More densely populated areas such as cities generate more plastic waste. One such populated state is Maharashtra, it is estimated around 30 lakh 250 ml of bottles and 25 lakh 500ml bottles are disposed daily and this is leaving a harmful impact on the environment.

The state environment department has issued a ban on single-use plastics. But only weeks after the ban, the government is set to implement a plastic buy-back scheme, wherein the customers will be paid back the deposit that is paid to the retailer upon returning back the used PET bottles and milk packets. The state department is also planning on a similar mechanism that can be used to recycle tetra packets and the plastics that are used for retail packing such as plastic covers etc. The system of the buy-back scheme is already in practice in 40 other countries. India’s first ever buy-back scheme is said to be effective come July 11th.

This scheme has also been made mandatory for all the manufacturers to set up collection and recycling plants to ensure the smooth running of the scheme. This will hopefully reduce the plastic wastage of the city. For every milk pouch 50 paise is refunded and 1 rupees for one liter PET bottle and 2 rupees for 200ml to 1-liter bottles. It is to be noted that any bottle or plastic below 200ml is banned. Experts believe that this will result in a rise in the price of the retail products. This scheme may face initial glitches like shortage of recycling units and lack of incentives and high deposit rates may lead to manufacturing of plastic for the purpose of recycling them.