Plastic solutions

India needs robust data, along with recycling infrastructure to curb plastic pollution in rural India

- SWATI BHATIA

KALADWAS IS one of the few Rajasthan villages that offers door-to-door waste collection for all 710 households. For this task, the panchayat has hired two full-time waste collectors with a salary of ₹8,000 a month. The village administration recently even submitted a proposal to the district administration to avail funding for a material recycling facility, which is a setup for large-scale sorting of recyclable waste such as glass and certain reusable plastics like bottles.

Still, non-recyclable plastic products such as polythene bags, plastic cups, plates and wrappers are strewn all over the village. Plastics and other solid waste have clogged all waterbodies and drains and they are regularly burned in the open. Incineration of plastic waste in open fields is a major source of air pollution and such burning releases toxic gases like dioxins, furans, mercury and polychlorinated biphenyls into the atmosphere.

"While our household waste is collected daily, we do not know what to do with it. As a result, we end up dumping the waste in the open or burning it," says Nirmal Patel, a 32-year-old resident of the village. He adds that several incidents have been reported in the past when stray animals choked on plastic waste.