After Four Months of Plastic Bag Ban in Delhi

As I started my hesitant shopping and found myself carrying loosely, all the little items I had bought, I started feeling that my skepticism about Delhi’s ban on plastic bags had been unfounded. I was happy to put up with the inconveniences of bagless shopping: after all, what is the loss of a little item that unwittingly falls from an arm load or of a dress spoilt by leaking “shahi paneer” gravy compared to the loss of beautiful, clean world!

 Picture: Sign at a Delhi Metro Station

The seepage of doubt is such a difficult thing to stop. As I grew more fearless in my shopping and my bills became more respectable, plastic bags mysteriously began to reappear. And my regret grew-why had I not bought the other things earlier for fear of having to lug them unpackaged. Doubt turned to disbelief when the dust laden winds wrapped a dirty, worn out plastic bag around my ankle in one of delhi’s wild wind storm, the ‘andhi’of Delhi that I otherwise miss so much. The gulf of my disappointment only widened, when crossing the Yamuna I saw its coast littered by endless stream of plastic bags- as I had seen in a picture six months back. The sides of Yamuna are lined by plastic bags the same way as the coast of Dubai appears outlined by little lights when seen from the aeroplane.

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I felt frustrated by lack of policing and inspection by government agencies when on the day of “Rama Navami”, I saw dozens of people dropping stuff into the river and trashing the bridge with their empty plastic bags. As I was to learn, it is the day when many people with run down to the final end (the river) residue objects generated in prayers in the previous eight days or even in the previous year.  And all this despite the laws that were passed earlier this year imposing heavy punitive fine of $2,000 (= Rs. 100,000) for using the banned plastic bags. How I wished for proactive—not reactive—action on the part of the government. Delhi’s government has been taking some steps like the drive to identify illegal plastic units. But it needs to invest heavily in increasing the eco-awareness of its citizens. Merely putting signs won’t lead to behavioral changes in delhiites  who are known to flout the earlier bans such as smoking in public places etc. Specially when there is a great effort afoot to create sentiments (possibly dangerous) about “harmlessness of plastic bags” as well as repealing the ban.

Picture: Sign on the Banks of River Yamuna

 An old maxim, reverberated in my mind, that had been our conclusion in a comparative study of environmental policy making in India, China and Taiwan: mere policy formulation is inadequate; good policy implementation is a critical second step to render the first step meaningful. I would go so far as to say that mere quantification of laws is useless. Holistic attempts for implementation are called for. Customs and practices of the people must be examined in conjunction with the new laws produced to allow the implementation to be both practical as well as thorough.

Picture Credits: Sign at Metro Station (Courtesy: baklavabaklava via Flickr.com under Creative Commons License), Sign on the River Yamuna (Courtesy: dodo_anji via Flickr.com under Creative Commons License)

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