Substandard plastic bags: Centre for fines on street vendors

New Delhi, Jun 30: Concerned over the growing waste menace, including plastic scrap, the government intends to impose fines on street vendors for providing substandard plastic carry bags among a slew of other stringent measures to tackle the issue.

Environment Ministry has come out with five new draft waste management rules which includes solid waste management including construction and demolition of wastes, plastic, E-waste, bio-medical waste and Fly ash utilisation amendment notification 2015.

"We have come out with five new draft waste management rules. We are now revising them. We have asked for comments from people till July 31. The drafts are on the Ministry's website," Environment Minister

told reporters here.

One of the salient features of the draft plastic waste management rules 2015 states that street vendors would be "liable for paying fines for selling or providing sub-standards plastic carry bags or commodities wrapped/packed in sub-standard plastic sheets".

It also says that the rules which only applied to municipal areas as per the earlier 2011 rule, now will cover 7,935 town in the country as identified during census 2011 including outgrowths in urban agglomeration and rural areas.

"Everyday 15,000 tonnes of such wastes is generated. This is increasing. 20 to 30 kilograms of plastic is found inside the dead body of stray animals," Javadekar said.

The salient features of new draft solid waste management rules 2015, states that urban local bodies (ULBs) will direct waste generator for segregating waste at source while it also can prescribe user fee to be charged to the generator.

It also asks ULBs to make provisions to levy spot fines for littering and provide easy access to rag pickers in waste collection.

The salient features for role of waste generator also states that it is liable to pay user fee and spot fee as prescribed by ULBs.

It would also be "mandatory to obtain authorisation by all Health Care Facilities (HCFs) irrespective of generation of biomedical waste as well as number of patients treated per month.

PTI