The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) had earlier announcd the ban on plastic products below 50-micron thickness in the city. A blanket ban was introduced on the usage, manufacturing and selling on water pouches, bags and plastic cups. Now, as per the resolution of the United Nations, the civic body will ban the single-use plastic items in civic body's jurisdiction from May 2019 onwards.
The civic officials are meeting with people from food business and other eatery operators asking them to stop using the single-use plastic items like spoons, forks, plates etc. "Other than this, we have asked the food business operators to reduce the usage of plastic for the food parcel. A huge amount of plastic is dumped daily because of lucrative packaging of food parcels. We have asked them to find an alternative," said a senior AMC official.
The ban has been delayed because of the announcement of the General Election 2019. With the ongoing election process and implementation of Model Code of Conduct, the civic body could not issue a notification regarding the ban. According to the sources, once the election gets over in state on April 23, 2019, the civic body will impose the ban. The ban will be implemented from May 1, 2019, which is also the foundation day of the State.
Post the ban, there will be difficulty in finding substitute for milk packaging and milk products pouches that have been used by the dairy industry. "It is easy to ban the items like plastic spoons and fork, but there is a big question of the plastic being used by the dairy industry. There needs to be some alternative for that also," added the official.
In June 2018, the civic body had seized more than 12,000 kg of banned plastic and levied administrative charge worth more than crore rupees soon after the ban on plastic items. But after few weeks, some of the banned items are still being used in city premises.
