India’s production and waste of plastics will blow your mind. As consumers, how do we play our part in reducing plastic usage and restoring our oceans?

Plastic is everywhere - and affects us all. As the second-most populated country in the world, India is a leader in plastic production, usage and pollution. In 1957 they began producing polystyrene, which marked the beginning of their journey towards becoming one of the world’s highest producers of virgin plastics. The export annual value of plastic and linoleum from India currently stands at a colossal AUD$10.7 billion, with the industry employing around 4 million people and comprising 30,000 processing units across the country. Whilst the amount of plastic that India produces is overwhelming, possibly the most frightening figure is that of plastic waste per year in the country - estimated to be 3,360,043 tonnes!.

So, what’s the issue?

With a severe lack of waste management and recycling facilities, the majority of this plastic waste ends up in the ocean, destroying marine ecosystems, affecting fisheries and killing millions of marine animals every year. Although there are policies and regulations in place on plastic waste management, including the plastics ban that we recently contributed to in Kerala, the hard reality is that there is an ongoing struggle by individuals and local bodies to enforce these bans, as well as a struggle to know what to do with all of this waste, especially given the lack of infrastructure. The enormous contribution that plastic makes to the Indian economy, as well as the jobs that it creates, can also not be overlooked, especially in a country with 1.35 billion people and an enormous unemployment rate. In addition to this, in the midst of a pandemic, we’re seeing even more pollution from disposable masks and sanitiser bottles making their way into the waste stream and adding an even greater strain to the already overwhelmed waste sector. Our ‘new normal’ asks us to focus on self-care and community health as a priority, yet this self-care is having untold impacts on our environment and ultimately an even greater strain on our long-term health as well.

With a severe lack of waste management and recycling facilities, the majority of this plastic waste ends up in the ocean, destroying marine ecosystems, affecting fisheries and killing millions of marine animals every year.

What is Positive Change for Marine Life doing to help?

Positive Change for Marine Life works with households in Vizhinjam and Kottapuram in southern India segregating, cleaning, collecting and recycling plastic materials. We lobbied to ban single-use plastics in the region in which we work and succeeded in our mission through the role that we played in a state-wide ban actioned by the Kerala State Government and Tourism Department. As part of the campaign, our team collected over 60,000 pieces of plastic from the beach area, subsidised and provided locally-sourced environmentally friendly plastic alternatives for local vendors and businesses and conducted essential educational programs and training workshops for the community. While all of these steps are positive, reducing plastic waste is only a small part of the solution.

Our team collected over 60,000 pieces of targeted plastic items from our target area, where we have been transitioning vendors to sustainable, non-plastic single-use products.

We employ over 40 women on a casual basis in the community.

Circular economies that support local people and their livelihoods are needed and, while we would like to take our programs to other communities in India and around the world, we are a very small organisation with limited resources and the problems that Vizhinjam, Kottapuram and Kovalam face are shared by hundreds of thousands of communities around the world. They cannot be solved by grassroots action alone. We need long-term change from the top-down as well as the bottom-up. Imagine transitioning the 30,000 plastic processing units that employ 4,000,000 people in India to plastic recycling, upcycling and renewable product facilities? The profits would surely trump those that the cheap plastic packaging industries are currently producing and the benefits to the environment, the economy and local communities would be astronomical.

Reducing plastic waste is only a small part of the solution. Circular economies that support local people and their livelihoods are needed.

Transforming waste into wealth

Through transforming waste into wealth and creating localised sustainable industries, which take pressure off marine ecosystems, governments and businesses around the world could be leading the way in cleaning up our oceans, reducing emissions and creating clean, long-term employment opportunities for those living below the poverty line. This means stopping the supply chain of plastic at its source and ensuring that the plastic production industry pays for the environmental and human health impacts that it creates or else has to pass the cradle to grave costs on to the consumer. This would mean that a new phone would cost $10-$15,000 per unit as it would take into account the social cost of production, as well as the environmental remediation needed to offset the phone’s impact, as well as the carbon footprint that each phone carries with it during its life cycle.

We see an incredible opportunity in India and around the world for our grassroots waste management and recycling model to create enormous change, however, we need everyone to play their part. This means using less plastic, reusing the plastic that you do use and pushing producers, manufacturers and retailers to transition their supply chains. If we all refused single-use plastic products today, the plastic industry would cease to exist tomorrow.

Change begins with the choices that we all make every day

The conservation of nature is only possible if we learn from our mistakes and make choices based on the long-term prosperity of our fellow humans and the ecosystems that we rely upon for survival. Change begins with the choices that we all make every day, so why not take action by lobbying your local MP and writing to Woolworths, Coles, IGA, Bunnings, Kmart or other major supermarket/retailer to ban all single-use plastic and polystyrene products. If the community takes action from the bottom-up and governments and major companies take action from the top-down, we can meet in the middle and make plastic pollution a thing of the past!

If the community takes action we can meet in the middle and make plastic pollution a thing of the past!

Watch our Waste Collection documentary

During a recent trip to India in January (pre-COVID), our CEO Karl Goodsell visited the communities of Kottapuram and Vizhinjam during one of our teams weekly waste collections. Collecting from >120 households and businesses, as well as employing >40 marginalised women, we are excited to see the inroads that this project has made and the incredible, inspiring local women who are driving it! A huge thank you to our sponsors Australian Ethical Super, Ubuntu Foundation and Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, without whom this work wouldn't be possible. Please make sure to watch until the end, as there is a little more post-credits!