Drafted in 2019, Delhi’s plastic waste by-laws may be notified soon

New Delhi: The plastic waste management bylaws will be notified in the Capital by next week, a government official has said, even as the nationwide ban on single-use plastic has come into force from July 1

New Delhi: The plastic waste management bylaws will be notified in the Capital by next week, a government official has said, even as the nationwide ban on single-use plastic has come into force from July 1.

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“The urban development department had sought public feedback on the bylaws in August last year but the final notification is still awaited. They may be notified by next week,” an environment department official who is aware of the matter said.

The plastic waste management rules prescribe a range of hefty fines on use, manufacture and disposal of plastic items done in violation of the rules that aimed at cutting the use of plastic, pushing for alternatives and curbing the resultant damage to the environment.

However, since the rules have not bee notified yet, the agencies are being forced to handle violations under the Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) rules, which are less stringent.

The MSW rules prescribe a fine of ₹500 for littering and waste processing related violations, and may extend up to a maximum of ₹5.000. But, under the plastic waste rules, violators can be fined between ₹1,000 ₹50,000 for varied offences. Under the plastic waste bylaws, ppen burning of such waste can invite a penalty of ₹5,000, and a person may have to shell out ₹1,000 for littering. The bylaws mandate a fine of ₹50,000 on producers/importers and distributors who fail to make modalities for the waste collection system as part of extended producer responsibility.

“The draft rules also mandate marking on plastic carry bags and a fine of ₹10,000 can be imposed on violations. It will make it much more easier for enforcement teams to take action against banned items when the bylaws are notified,” said an official of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), and added that currently violations are being handled under MSW rules.

According to the Central Pollution Control Board, Delhi generates 689.8 tonnes of plastic waste daily, the highest among all metropolitan cities in India. A senior municipal corporation official from the Department of Environment Management Service (sanitation) said that the bylaws were re-drafted and submitted to the Delhi government in August 2019, and several reminders have been sent for notification of these rules.

A senior environment ministry official said the plastic waste management bylaws are being vetted by the law department, and “they are likely to be notified next week”. “No changes have been made so far to the proposal sent by the MCD,” the official said asking not to be named.

The MCD has deployed 125 enforcement teams to enforce the ban on single-use plastic. The teams have issued a total of 337 challans amounting to 1,68,500 ( ₹500 per challan) between July 1 and July 11 2022, an action taken report by the civic body said.

Besides the civic body, 15 teams of Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) and 33 teams of revenue department are working to enforce the ban. The DPCC teams are penalising offenders under the Environment Protection Act, and are specifically targeting the bulk producers/distributors, a DPCC official said. 

The bylaws take a strict view of the use of single-use plastic items that have now been banned by the Centre such as wrapping or packaging films, plastic cutlery, straws, and plastic sticks for balloons and earbuds. They also make it mandatory for all the producers and distributors of such items to register with DPCC within three months of notification and to maintain records of people engaged in plastic waste supply chain. “Besides the already banned items, the additional banned items under the bylaws include plastic sachets used for selling gutkha, tobacco and pan masala and drinking water sachets of any size and packed water bottles having capacity less than 1 litres,” and MCD official explained.

The bylaws will also introduce the concept of user fee for plastic waste. “No person shall organize an event or gathering of more than one hundred persons without intimating local body online along with payment of user fee,” the draft bylaws state, and add that first week of each month should be fixed for collection of user fee--the amounts for which have not been specified.

Satish Sinha associate director of environmental group Toxics Link said that the national rules on municipal waste and plastic waste came in 2016, and different states have tweaked them according to local conditions while recognizing that any additional measures that add teeth to the fight against plastic was must be welcomed. “Even before the current ban, states such as Maharashtra and Sikkim were takin steps to ban single use plastic items which go beyond this ban. Sikkim has complete ban on plastic water bottles despite being reliant on tourism. The local administration there has deployed water dispensers,” he added.