Dr Asangba Tzudir
The theme for World Environment Day 2025 is "Ending Plastic Pollution," with the Republic of Korea as the host country, aiming to strengthen global commitment to addressing this urgent issue and catalyze collective action for a sustainable future. At the Global Partnership on Plastic Pollution and Marine Litter (GPML) Multi-Stakeholder Event held in Busan on December 2, 2024, Hyungsup Lee, Deputy Director-General of the Republic of Korea's Ministry of Environment, reaffirmed the country’s commitment to tackling plastic pollution. As host country, Lee expressed that the event will serve as a crucial platform to raise awareness about plastic pollution and unite all sectors like governments, businesses, and civil societies in addressing this critical issue, and also further emphasized that the event would inspire future generations to understand the importance of environmental stewardship and take action towards a sustainable future.
Plastic pollution is a major environmental concern and within this theme, the focus is to address the global plastic pollution crisis and also to promote sustainable solutions and thereby catalyze collective action towards strengthening the global commitment to end plastic pollution. But unless the world understands the menace of plastic pollution, the theme will simply fizzle out after 5th June. To put an end to plastic pollution the communities worldwide must first come together and mobilize communities and adopt measures targeted at ending plastic pollution.
Globally, an estimated 300 million tonnes of plastic waste are produced each year. This translates to approximately 826,000 tonnes of plastic waste generated every day. India is considered to be a major contributor to global plastic pollution accounting for nearly 20% of the total global plastic waste. This roughly translates to around 26,000 tonnes of plastic waste being generated every day. Now the issue arises when we look at the rate of recycling which is about 8% of the plastic waste produced daily. This means 92% of plastic waste is mismanaged and ends up in landfills or as unregulated waste. This is the reason why India faces a significant challenge in managing its waste, with a large portion of solid waste remaining uncollected and untreated.
The case of Nagaland is such that it generates approximately 303.85 tonnes of waste per day, with about 260 tonnes collected, leaving 43 tonnes untreated daily. Dimapur obviously is the highest and comes to over 100 MT, followed by Kohima at a little below 100 MT. Though not the latest, it gives a rough idea about the Nagaland plastic waste situation.
Following the largely unsuccessful imposition of ban on single use plastics in the state by the Government in 2019, again the ban has been imposed w.e.f July 1, 2022 on the use of identified single-use plastic items that have low utility and high littering potential. This re-imposition come in the wake of the failure on the previous ban attempt and also in view of the serious environmental and ecological challenges posed by rampant use of plastics. Following which, a bio-degradable poly bag was introduced but the non-biodegradable poly bags has ‘resurfaced’ alongside, not that it had fully disappeared.
While the earlier notification on the ban was in reference to “Plastic waste management Rules 2016” and the “Plastic waste management (Amendment) Rules, 2021” calling for strict adherence, that, any breach will be liable for penalties. In tune with this year’s world environment day theme, the District Administration, DMC, Sub-Divisional Administration or Urban local bodies should invoke the above two rules and levy penalties on the defaulters accordingly so that this ‘normalised’ culture of using single use plastic will continue. Along with the bio-degradable single use plastics, cloth bags and paper bags especially for shops and market goers should be encouraged.
On the whole, the efforts towards ‘ending plastic pollution’ require concerted efforts from everyone at different levels especially educational institutions. To this end, a lot of knowledge, education, awareness and sensitization is necessary. Also an attitudinal shift is integral to changing our perspective. Like our own home which is kept clean, so do our world which is our bigger home but we unmindfully litter. Our perspective needs to be extended.
(Dr Asangba Tzudir contributes a weekly guest editorial to The Morung Express. Comments can be emailed to asangtz@gmail.com)
