Image from The Indian Express, ‘Few care for ban on plastic bags’ (December 29, 2014)

In case you have not kept up with the latest from the Kardashians, plastic straws have now been banned from the Kardashian household. With the theme for World Environment Day this year being that of Beat Plastic Pollution, eliminating single-use plastics has become a priority for global environmental action. This focus on plastics is not new: disposable plastic has long been targeted by environmentalists to encourage recycling and combat marine pollution. However, outright bans on single-use plastics are relatively recent, and so has the fervour at which campaigns against plastic are mounted – even reaching Hollywood.

But ditching disposable plastics is no longer just a personal choice for Hollywood stars. In some areas, it is now the law. Local governments in cities such as Seattle and New York have adopted bans on single-use plastics at a startling rate. These bans can be highly specific; the Wall Street Journal even called this the summer of straw bans. Bans on single-use plastics have also come into effect in more unlikely places. For instance, in June 2018, a ban on disposable plastics became enforceable in the Indian state of Maharashtra to public backlash. Concerns arose over how this would impact livelihoods: with plastic bags banned under the law, vendors of fish struggled to find alternative packaging that would be waterproof and reported a large loss in sales.

For my beat, I wish to investigate the unintended consequences of bans on single-use plastics across a variety of country contexts. Why were these bans on single-use plastics put into place so quickly, and did these bans achieve their aims? What happens when bans are implemented in countries as poor and large as India, where an informal recycling sector often relies on plastic for their livelihoods? Do these bans actually curb plastic pollution, or are they merely a cosmetic exercise that obscures the need for better alternatives to plastic? What are the unintended consequences of such bans, especially for people that have no choice but to rely on single-use plastics?

This beat will highlight stories such as the pushback on plastic straw bans from people with disabilities, and the struggle of small retailers in India to find alternatives to waterproof plastic packaging that can cope with the monsoon rains. Through such stories, I aim to show how policies around plastic need to incorporate the lens of environmental justice, so that we can not only deal with a material so embedded in our modern economy, but do so justly.