Discrimination Nation?

Re: Are they right to argue that a ban is actually a "tax" on plastic, which is singled out as a disposal problem, when other waste is not?

Is that really the question you wanted to ask? Or is there some (quasi-)political aspect to this that is not immediately obvious? (Like maybe, in India, a tax is illegal but a ban is not?)

If we were going to call this discrimination, and then rank the degree of discrimination based on whether the something was taxed or banned, then the ban would be a higher degree of discrimination.

On the other hand, discrimination is something that human beings are capable of and should do. In general, plastic is one of the more troublesome waste materials, in that it is harder to recycle and slower to decompose. (Compare that to wastes like food and related organic waste, yard waste, paper, and metal products. (Often times if there is a significant amount of steel in an item, you can just dump it into an electric furnace (or similar) and let the other wastes be burned off or collected in the slag.)

I think plastics are a subject that should be carefully considered with respect to the waste stream, and be discriminated against. The degree of discrimination might be discussed.

There is a thriving activity of collection of plastic waste for the recycling industry in India. There are many vendors of recylcled resin pellets, which are much cheaper than the virgin material. The rag pickers make a living too.

The very thin gauge material used for some purposes (garbage bags nad such) do get into drains and things and do create an occasional problem. Many of us actively promote minimizing use of shopping bags and use reusable cloth bags for grocery.

Individual users do not throw away such plastic bags. They are reused, sometimes repeatedly.

An outright ban may prove to be short sighted.

..............and plastics only 4% of India's waste and 60% of that is recycled........and they use plastic shopping bags as well plastics being used in packaging of almost everything in supermarkets, electrical/electronic goods, hardware, etc.,etc..........this no doubt is a government figure............and of course it would have to be accurate.

I do not wish to appear facetious in my remarks..........but give me break , please.