By Sonal Bhutra Sept 24, 2019 7:30:44 PM IST (Updated)
Let’s not get so technical and understand how grave is this plastic problem and where do we stand as a country in terms of plastic consumption and production?
The recent appeal by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to ban single-use plastic has spooked the industry and they have asked for clarifications with respect to what will be exempted and what will be a part of this ban.
An expert chemist or specialist in plastics will be able to list various plastics and the way their properties differ. A layman knows no such distinction. For him, everything and anything that is “plasticky” is plastic. This understanding is mostly derived via elimination, "If it is not made of metal, wood, glass or paper, it is plastic."
The father of plastics, Leo Baekeland once said, "I was trying to make something really hard, but then I thought I should make something really soft instead, that could be moulded into different shapes. That was how I came up with the first plastic. So basically, plastics are polymers: a long chain of molecules joined to one another. Any formless material that can be shaped under heat and circumstances."