MoEF Notification No. S.O.

249 (E) dt 4th Feb 2011

Date: 11th April 2011

The Secretary,
Ministry of Environment & Forest ((MoEF).
Government of India (Government of India,)
Paryawaran Bhawan,
CGO Complex, Lodi Road,
New Delhi 110 003.

Sub: MoEF Notification No. S.O. 249 (E) dated 4th February, 2011 titled Plastic Waste, 
Management and Handling Rules, 2011 – Clarifications regarding.

Sir ,   Greetings from AIPMA! The All India Plastics Manufacturers’ Association – popularly known 
as AIPMA was founded by Industry visionaries in 1945 making it the old & the largest Apex Body in 
the Plastic Industry in India, having 1500 direct members and 12000 indirect members. AIPMA 
sincerely thanks honorable Minister for Environment and Forests, Mr. Jairam Ramesh that he has 
accepted that imposing a blanket ban on the use of plastic all over the country is impractical and 
undesirable. The real challenge is to improve municipal solid waste management systems.

   We want to draw your attention to the fact that notification issued by Ministry of Environment 
and Forest about plastic waste management on 4th February, 2011 has created confusion amongst 
the manufacturers, processors and citizens. Even law enforcing authorities are confused because of 
the ambiguous notification as there is no differentiation in plastic carry bags and other plastic 
packaging material. Such ambiguous notification is leading to the harassment and corruption. We 
propose following changes in the notification to avoid confusion.

  1.         Clause 3(b) – Definition of “Carry Bags”:

Definition of carry bags in the new notification is, “carry bags” have been defined as “mean
all plastic bags used to carry commodities, including self carrying features”. It may be
recalled that the definition of “carry bags” in the existing rule vide MoEF Notification S.O. 698(E)
dated 17th June, 2003 is an elaborate explanation of what constitutes a carry bag.

In 2009 notification no. 1497 dated 18th Sept 2009 the definition of carry bags was “carry bags
means the plastic bags which have self carrying features for carrying commodities. The definition
was subsequently changed without considering manufacturer’s and consumer’s opinion. The
2009 notification also included dimensions of carry bags which was helpful in explaining the
meaning of carry bag.

AIPMA’s appeal to the ministry is to clarify the definitions in the notification and instruct the
local bodies accordingly. We therefore reiterate that the definition of the Plastic Carry Bags
should be retained as per the old rule dated 17th June 2003. We propose the definition of carry
bags should be as follows. “Carry bags” means plastic bags which have self carrying
features commonly known as vest typed bags or any other feature used to carry
commodities such as D punched bas.( picture explaining what carry bags are should be
given with the rule to avoid confusion)

2.               Clause No.8 – “Marking and Labeling”

We can understand and accept the of printing name of manufacturer , registration number and
other details on the carry bags. But it is practically impossible to print such details on every
packaging material. (Local authorities consider every packaging material as carry bags
because of the vague definition of carry bags). Following are difficulties we are facing while
implementing the rule.

1. All the plastic manufacturers fall under small scale industry. They don’t have infrastructure 
available for printing. It is impossible for them to create such infrastructure overnight.

 2. It is impossible print so many details on small packaging material

 3.    Most importantly recycling value of PRINED PACKAGING MATERIAL gets depleted by 80 
%. We are afraid that Rag pickers will lose interest in picking up the printed carry bags as 
they will not fetch good money from them. In this case problem solid waste management will 
take gigantic shape which was faced never before and will create manifold problems.

 4. Clause No.10 – Explicit Pricing of Carry Bags. The provisions under Clause 10 appear

impracticable in Indian context. So they should be deleted from the notification.

5.    Implementation Date of the new Notification

Production and sale of plastic packaging material are done by ten thousand units spread all
over the country employing more than 10 lac people and mostly in small scale sector. There
are thousands of tones of packaging material lying as “stocks in trade” in the supply chain.
Some reasonable time of say at least three to six months should be granted to all the
producers to implement the provisions of new notification No.S.O.249(E) dated 4th
February 2011.

AIPMA is committed for betterment of India plastic processors and protecting their rights is our
prime responsibility. But we are equally concern with the environmental problems. We request
you to look into the matter as many of our innocent members have to suffer a lot because of new
notification. We would also like to draw your attention to the fact that raise in the price of
packaging material especially of food products may automatically lead to raise in inflation which
will create bad impression in the minds of people.

Thanking you,

Yours sincerely,
For The All India Plastics Manufacturers’ Association,

Yogesh P Shah
President.