BMC to crackdown on retailers using banned plastic items

The civic body, along with officials from the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) and Mumbai Police, has formed 24 ward-level teams to take stringent action against retailers using banned plastic items and have maintained that ward-level action would be initiated from August 21 onwards.

According to the civic body's rules, any plastic packaging item which is less than 50 microns in thickness falls under this banned category of plastic items. Most of the polythene bags which are circulated by retailers fall under this banned category. (Express Photo by Sahil Walia)

Listen to this article

00:00

1x 1.5x 1.8x

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is set to crackdown on hawkers, vendors and small scale retailers for using banned plastic material while carrying out business transactions with customers from next week.

The civic body, along with officials from the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) and Mumbai Police, has formed 24 ward-level teams to take stringent action against retailers using banned plastic items and have maintained that ward-level action would be initiated from August 21 onwards.

According to the civic body’s rules, any plastic packaging item which is less than 50 microns in thickness falls under this banned category of plastic items. Most of the polythene bags which are circulated by retailers fall under this banned category.

The MPCB guidelines also says that the minimum thickness manufacturers should maintain for making plastic bags should be more than 45 microns.

This specification was introduced by the state government’s environment department in 2018, when the usage of single-use plastics was banned.

Meanwhile, to ramp up the action against violators, earlier this month, the BMC had floated a proposal of setting up a five-member task force at the municipal ward level to take action against violators.

These teams will comprise three officials from the ward office and one member each from the MPCB and police.

“We will start a major crackdown against the violators from August 21 onwards. The team is already being formed in several wards and stringent action will start next week. The primary purpose of setting up these teams is to take action against hawkers and small scale business owners who continue to use these banned items in a major way,”

Sanjog Kabre, deputy municipal commissioner (special) told The Indian Express on Sunday.

So far, the civic body was taking action against major commercial establishments which included shops and retail outlets inside shopping malls and plazas. The officials maintained most of these major establishments have stopped usage of plastic bags and have switched to paper and jute bags.

However, the hawkers and small size shops would get away from the punishment as there was a lack of local level crackdown.

“The idea of initiating the crackdown against these small scale business owners was mainly floated by MPCB, as they believe the major chunk of banned plastic is being distributed from this sector. Therefore, this time our focus will be cracking down on them,” Kabre said.