The Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu announced a ban on the manufacture, storage, supply, sale and use of ‘one time use and throw away plastics’ irrespective of thickness, effective from 1st January, 2019 and that the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (“Board”) put up a list of banned plastic items and also indicated the alternatives to banned plastic under the ‘News & Events’ segment in its website.
In line with the aforementioned, the Board has recently issued directions to all the industries operating in the state of Tamil Nadu to take the following measures to ensure compliance with the order of the Government on the ban on use of one time use and throwaway plastic items:
- Provide permanent display board made of metal (not in PVC Flex) with pictorial representation of the banned “one time use and throwaway plastics” items at the entrance of the industry, for informing the visitors about the implementation of the ban on “use of one time use and throwaway plastics”.
- Declare their industry premises as “plastic free zone” and stickers shall be put up prominently.
- Conduct awareness programs among the employees and other public within 10 Km radius , about the ban on use of “one time use and throwaway plastics” and the alternatives for the banned plastics, utilizing the services of proactive Non-Governmental Organizations,National Green Corpsand ECO clubs.
- Conduct competitions among the children of their employees for creating awareness about ban on use of “one time use and throwaway plastics”.
- Take a pledge to avoid “one time use and throwaway plastics”.
- Provide notices to the suppliers, customers and visitors, detailing the banned plastic items and to make practice to use alternate to banned plastic items.
- Ensure that the banned plastic items are not used in the canteen, offices, official meetings, etc.
- Form a “one time use and throwaway plastics avoidance Committee” comprising of top, middle and lower level officials with responsibility to create and spread awareness among the employees and community around 10 Km radius.
Also, the Board has stated that the industries may carry out the above mentioned awareness program under Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and that the activities carried out by the industries towards the disposal of their CSR will be taken into account for Green Awards, issued by Government of Tamil Nadu.
The industries have further been directed to document the compliances mentioned above and send the same to the Board through email id: beattheplasticpollution@gmail.com on or before 15th December, 2018.
Source: Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board
