Plastic: the rules, the ban, microplastics and the treaty

Prelims and MainsCurrent affairs on this: Solid and plastic waste

India generates about 1.7 lakh tonnes of municipal solid waste a day and treats a little over half of it; plastic is the part that does not rot, breaks into fragments and travels, which is why it has rules of its own. The Plastic Waste Management Rules, 2016 govern it, and three amendments matter: the 2021 amendment that banned nineteen single use items from 1 July 2022 and raised the carry bag thickness to 120 microns; the 2022 amendment that put extended producer responsibility on plastic packaging, with targets and tradeable certificates on a Central Pollution Control Board portal; and the 2024 amendment that defined biodegradable and compostable plastic. Microplastics are fragments under 5 millimetres, made small on purpose or worn from larger waste, found now in salt, water and blood. A global plastics treaty has been negotiated since 2022 and is not yet agreed.

• The single use ban of 1 July 2022: ear buds with plastic sticks, balloon sticks, flags, candy and ice cream sticks, thermocol for decoration, plates, cups, glasses, cutlery, straws, trays, wrapping films around sweet boxes, invitation cards and cigarette packets, polyvinyl chloride (PVC) banners under 100 microns and stirrers; carry bags under 120 microns since 31 December 2022. Multilayered packaging and the plastic bottle are not banned; they are under extended producer responsibility instead.
• Extended producer responsibility for packaging, from 2022: producers, importers and brand owners register on the Board's portal, meet yearly targets for collection, recycling and recycled content across four categories, rigid, flexible, multilayered and compostable, and buy certificates from registered recyclers when they fall short; the mechanism across all the waste rules is on the responsibility foundation.
• Biodegradable against compostable: compostable plastic must meet the Indian standard IS 17088 and be certified by the Board, and it composts only in an industrial facility, not in a drain; biodegradable plastic must degrade in a named environment within a set time. Oxo degradable plastic, which merely fragments, is banned.
• Microplastics: primary, made small, as microbeads in cosmetics and pellets, or secondary, worn from tyres, textiles and litter; the National Centre for Coastal Research finds synthetic textile fibres the commonest on India's coast, and river discharge and lost fishing gear the main sources, as the marine litter subject sets out. Nanoplastics, under a micrometre, cross cell membranes.
• The treaty: the United Nations Environment Assembly resolved in March 2022 to negotiate a legally binding instrument on the full life cycle of plastic; five negotiating sessions and a resumed session at Geneva in August 2025 ended without a text, split between countries that want a cap on production, the High Ambition Coalition, and oil and plastic producers, with India among those opposing production limits and preferring waste management.

Mains: A ban on straws is visible and cheap; the plastic that matters is packaging, which is not banned because nothing yet replaces it, so the real policy is extended producer responsibility, and its test is whether the certificates on the portal correspond to plastic actually collected.

See also: Solid Waste Management Rules, 2026 · Marine litter and microplastics · Extended producer responsibility across the waste rules · The four chemicals conventions, and India's noise limits · Circular economy: the principles and India's instruments