Hazardous hues

The continuing use of different types of plastic is a threat to the environment. SHEELA RANI CHUNKATH writes on the necessity for a return to eco-friendly ways of living.

"INDIANS do not know how to sell. Look at the Americans, they package their products beautifully and make it attractive for consumers to buy." How often have people made this statement belittling Indian manufacturers and producers for paying little attention to packaging. With the opening up of the economy, we are deluged by goods, all attractively packed and begging to be bought. But stop. Take a moment to look at the material in which the products are being packed. It is that ubiquitous material, plastic. Hailed as one of the greatest inventions at the time of its introduction, plastics are now being regarded in the west and other environmentally conscious societies as a hazard. Western societies, used to the convenience of plastics and bullied by the powerful plastic lobby, are finding it difficult to get plastics out of their waste stream. One of the strategies they are adopting is to export their plastic waste, often badly contaminated, to the third world. Their plastic discards are being shipped to third world countries such as India, as recyclables, taking advantage of the lack of awareness among the public.

Consider the following facts. Producing a 500 ml PET bottle (PET is the abbreviation of Polyethylene Terepthalate - a type of plastic) generates more than 100 times the toxic emissions to air and water than making the same size bottle out of glass. In addition to creating safety and health problems during production, many chemical additives that give plastic products desirable packaging qualities also have negative environmental and human effects. These effects include direct toxicity as in the case of lead, cadmium and mercury. Most of the colourful pots or kudams which are locally manufactured by recycling would have these toxic additives. Problem chemicals are used in the manufacture of plastic containers for heat stabilisation and as plasticisers. Food can be contaminated by plastic containers because some chemicals diffuse from the packaging polymer of which they are made to the foods they contain. Migration potential exists for traces of monomers, oligorners, additives, stabilisers, plasticisers and lubricants. Such substances may be toxic. A report of the Berkeley (U.S.) Plastics Task Force published in 1996 found that styrene from polystyrene, plasticisers from PVC, antioxidants from polyethylene and acetaldehyde from PET have the potential to contaminate food. Yet despite its known toxic impact, the use of PET in bottles such as those for soda has increased by 54 per cent between 1995 and 1998 in the U.S..

Compared to plastics, glass is a far more environmentally friendly packing container. First, chemical contamination of food in a glass container is not likely. Second, glass containers can be used up to 25 - 30 times, as they can be easily washed and refilled. Third, glass can be recycled because of its short molecular structure, whereas plastic becomes brittle with recycling. We are all familiar with the soda bottles of yesteryear, which were refilled dozens of times till they became chipped or broken at which point they would be sent for recycling. I marvel at the ingenuity of the marble stopper fitted in the bottle - a truly eco-friendly piece of engineering design: multiple reuse and no wastage.

During the last decade, however, these eco-friendly bottles have been phased out. Eco-unfriendly plastic bottles and plastic packaging now dominate the scene. The Berkeley taskforce estimated that 29 kg of plastic waste per person was either burnt or buried in landfills of their city. And Berkeley did have a plastics recycling programme. These statistics show that there is a limit to plastics recycling and that environmentally conscious individuals should be more concerned with reducing consumption of plastic packaging at source.

Studies in the U.S. show that even as plastic reprocessing/ recycling rates have increased, so has the amount of virgin plastic resin production. Hence the need to emphasise reduction at source, if one is to tackle the problem of waste disposal.

Plastic packaging is slowly becoming the norm in India and we are happy to carry away water, juice, biscuits, chips, muruku, dal, pickles, curd, chicken and ready-to-eat dishes, in plastic containers. In 1995, of the 32 million tonnes of plastic resin produced in the U.S., nearly 40 per cent was used for packing and for producing containers, much of which ended up in landfills or was burnt. Municipal waste incineration, especially with chlorinated plastics, leads to release of dioxin which is a known carcinogen and which affects the reproductive system. It is not too late for us in India to go back to our old ways of carrying our own cloth bags for shopping, taking stainless steel tiffin carriers for take-out food, and drinking boiled tap water. We need to encourage and demand more eco-friendly packaging; glass bottles instead of plastic, less packing instead of more, and reusable instead of throwaway.

Remember the days when jasmine flowers were wrapped in banana leaves and tied with a banana fibre. The banana leaf was replaced by plastic carry bags and we looked upon it as progress. For real progress we need to turn the clock back and go back to our more eco-friendly ways when we consumed less and threw away much less.

The writer is the Chairperson of the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board.

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