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The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) seized nearly 7,300 cases of singles use plastic (SUP), valued at ₹ 1.14 crore, between September 2019 to June 2022, officials aware of the matter said on Monday.

BBMP officials stated that the crackdown is part of a “continuous process” across the state capital, which houses over 12 million residents and is known to have some of the poorest recycling facilities, as most of this plastic ends up in water bodies or on street corners.

“Anything that comes under single use (plastic) is banned. There is no quantification as such,” Dr Trilok Chandra, the special commissioner (health), BBMP, said.

Chandra said that the civic agency is targeting all establishments that use single-use plastic and manufacturers who make them.

The BBMP has also led a crackdown on plastics coming in from other states into Karnataka.

Despite the ban on the product since 2016, usage of single-use plastic went up during the Covid-19 pandemic, during which the fear of having to share steel cutlery and plates forced eateries and other establishments to rely on the product to serve customers.

A Union government ban on single-use plastic items, including wrapping or packaging films, plastic cutlery, straws, and plastic sticks for balloons and earbuds, came into effect on July 1.

The government banned 19 items on this list, according to its statement on June 28 which includes earbuds with plastic sticks, plastic sticks for balloons, plastic flags, candy sticks, ice- cream sticks, polystyrene (Thermocol) for decoration, plastic plates, cups, glasses, cutlery such as forks, spoons, knives, straw, trays, wrapping or packaging films around sweet boxes, invitation cards, cigarette packets, plastic or PVC banners less than 100 micron, stirrers.

According to Vijay Kumar, the president of the Karnataka State Polymer Association, single-use plastic accounts for just 3% or 200,000 metric tonnes of the total plastics consumed in the country.

He said that the per-capita consumption of plastic is currently 11-13kgs in India and is likely to see an increase of 20-23% in the short-term period, HT reported on July 5.

After the Indian government announced a blanket ban on all single use plastic items from July 1, the civic body has intensified the implementation across the city. It is also reported that on Saturday alone, the BBMP seized 122.3 kg of single use plastic from 98 locations in the city and ₹ 77,100 was collected on the same day as fine. The violators include manufacturers, retailers and small-scale business vendors who are dependent on single use plastic for their daily trade.

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