This matter of plastic

The art critic, Richard Blurton, talks about the soil of India being physically and metaphorically imbued with divinity. We are determined that the symbol of our Earth Goddess will be in polystyrene and in polyethylene. Twenty thousand years from now, when archaeologists dig up the ruins of 21st century India, we want them to think that we as a people worshipped plastic as a symbol of immortality. Our plastic litter will be far more valued in future museums than Painted Grey Ware pottery is today.

It is not as though we produce more plastic in absolute or per capita terms than other nations. It is just that others believe in systematically disposing their garbage. We believe in throwing garbage all over the place and in letting it lie around. Our municipal governments and our highway departments think there is no need to have a system to collect garbage and/or destroy it. In the past, this hardly mattered. After all, we do live in a semi-tropical country. Sooner or later, the garbage rotted away. Stray dogs, cows, goats, pigs and rats are not all rats stray? took care of some of the garbage. Bacteria and Mother Nature did the rest. The stuff eventually decomposed!

Plastic, however, is different. It is non-bio-degradable 8212; a mouthful of an expression 8212; which, simply put, means that Mother Nature will not help us. We cannot be our lazy, lackadaisical selves. Our civic authorities cannot sit around and indulge in idle expressions of over-stuffed self-importance. Plastic cannot be ignored. It demands our attention. It must be collected, gathered and incinerated or destroyed in some other systematic way.

Other countries seem to have less plastic litter lying around. And I8217;m not talking of super-affluent countries. In recent times I have visited Sri Lanka and Pakistan. In neither country did I find egregiously intrusive plastic dumps along roadsides. But I guess the Constitution of India requires us as one of our Fundamental Duties to litter plastic.

Our left-leaning, liberal, socialistic can anyone tell me the difference between socialist and socialistic? jholawalla intellectuals have a simple solution. Let us ban plastic. It must, after all, be contributing to filthy multi-national profits. They would also ban cars to eliminate exhaust pollution and ban thermometers in the hope that not measuring temperatures will eliminate fevers. In any other country, the logical response would be to set up a system to collect and dispose of plastic so that it does not disfigure our land. No, this would be too simple and logical for us. Only steps which involve cutting-off-our-noses-to-spite-our-faces will do!

In this context, let me make a right-wing, conservative, market-oriented suggestion which is sensible but of course, can it be otherwise?. I submit to the finance minister that he should levy a small cess on plastic up to, say, one half of one per cent of the value of all the plastic produced in or imported into this country. He can then contribute the proceeds of this cess to a 8220;Plastic Repurchase Fund8221;. Any person who collects and sells plastic to this fund will be paid so many rupees for every gram of plastic that he or she collects and brings to the collection point. At one stroke, the creative energies of millions of our countrymen and countrywomen will get harnessed. We will become a nation of plastic-litter-collectors. What a sublime thought! Having collected the plastic at Special Collection Points across the country, we can then decide how to dispose of it. If such large quantities are gathered, I am sure some items, literally some tons of plastic, can be recycled and there will be buyers for the same. I have a novel suggestion for that which cannot be recycled. We can mix strands and sheets of plastic with the gravel and asphalt that we use in building our roads. Their non-bio-degradability might actually help. In any event, they will become part of the highways and byways of India. Better than lying on roadsides in a state of ugly nonchalance.

We now run into the usual objection which is valid for any and all actions that one can suggest for our government. 8220;But, there will be corruption8221;. It is to be expected that in the first few months, more plastic will be collected and paid for in Bihar than the entire production of plastic in the whole world for the past thirty years. Of course, none of this will be physically collected. It will just be 8220;shown as collected8221; in government records and more importantly it would have been 8220;paid for8221;. No cess will be sufficient to pay for the enormous amount of non-physical, but corrupt metaphorical plastic which will be collected.

Instead of starting a Ministry of Plastic Collection with the inevitable quota of one secretary, two additional secretaries, four joint secretaries, eight deputy secretaries and so on, why not, after a fair and open tender process in front of open, not hidden Tehelka cameras, award each district to a different organisation in the private sector for the purposes of 8220;Management of the Plastic Environment8221;?

Not-for-profit voluntary civic organisations should be encouraged to monitor and police the execution of these contracts and highlight any malfeasance. Some corruption will probably still happen. But that will be a small price to pay to clear large parts of our country of this menace that is here and now!

Write to jerryraoexpressindia.com