India must take its laws on waste seriously to stop microplastics pollutionThe Ganga might have stood witness to many stages of India’s civilisation, as Mahatma Gandhi once noted, but in recent decades it has become a conduit for sewage, solid waste, industrial effluents and other pollutants. These range from tyres, clothing, food packaging, bags, cosmetics with microbeads, garland covers and other municipal waste. Successive governments issued waste management rules, but dropped the ball on implementation. Moreover, growing plastic waste will far exceed the capacity of governments to manage it, given that recycling has its limits. Plastic waste around the world is threatening the food web and the crisis demands a new global treaty modelled on the Montreal Protocol and the Paris Agreement.

Source: The Hindu July 23, 2021 19:07 UTC