Delhi authorities plan to interact with various e-commerce companies and food shipping platforms such as Zomato, Swiggy, Amazon and Flipkart to implement a high standard of ban on single-use plastic (SUP) items in the capital, officials said on Saturday.
These companies have a huge business in Delhi and this has only expanded after the Covid pandemic, they said it is essential to provide them on board to ensure that the marketing campaign is successful.
Officials will organize a roundtable with e-commerce companies along with various stakeholders like market associations, self-help groups and industry associations to motivate and promote the use of single-use plastic picks, officials said.
Legal experts, enforcement officers of MCD, DPCC will also participate in the round table meeting chaired by Environment Minister Gopal Rai.
The government is holding a ‘Plastic Vikas Mela’ at Thyagraj Stadium, which will end on July 3 and will be held at the venue, officials said.
Interestingly, some online structures have already started thinking about ‘plastic neutral delivery’.
On August 12 of the remaining year, the Union Ministry of Environment issued a notification banning the manufacture, import, storage, distribution, sale and use of recognized SUP products containing polystyrene and polystyrene from July 1, 2022.
Acceptable SUP items include earbuds, plastic sticks for balloons, flags, candy sticks, ice cream sticks, polystyrene (thermocol), plates, cups, glasses, forks, spoons, knives, straws, trays, wrappers or packaging motion picture round candy boxes, Invitation cards, cigarette packets, plastic or PVC banners and stirrers less than 100 microns.
In Delhi, the revenue department and the Delhi Pollution Control Committee have formed 33 and 15 teams respectively to enforce the ban.
1,060 tonnes of plastic waste is generated in Delhi every day. Single-use plastics are estimated to account for 5.6 percent (or 56 kg per metric ton) of the capital’s total solid waste.
