Senior Standing Counsel, UT Administration, Advocate Anupam Gupta has cleared all legal doubts with regard to banning plastic and polythene carry bags in Chandigarh.

In his detailed legal opinion, Gupta has strongly advocated a complete ban on all shapes and sizes of plastic and polythene carry bags, relying upon the Plastic Manufacture Sale and Usage Rules, 1999, notified by the Central government under the Environment Protection Act, 1986.

The Rules give illustrations of two kinds of plastic carry bags — ‘D-punched’ and ‘vest-type’, each measuring 8*12 inches. Since the rules made mention of only two such bags, a doubt was raised as to whether they would be applicable to all shapes and sizes of plastic carry bags.

In his strongly worded reply, Gupta has made it clear that the Rules cover all shapes and sizes of plastic carry bags and that the UT Administrator and Punjab Governor Gen S F Rodrigues (Retd) is competent to ban them in Chandigarh.

“There is no loophole here. We should proceed apace with the ban in the interest of our own health and that of the future generations. Not to attend to it immediately, and address it in a long-term principled perspective would be an abdication of public responsibility of the worst kind,” reads the letter.

The ban is set to come into effect from October 2.

According to the Rules, the two essential descriptive planks or components of the definition of ‘carry bags’ in Rule 3(b) are: (i) carry bags are plastic bags which have a ‘self-carrying feature’ and (ii) Alternately, carry bags are plastic bags which have ‘any other feature’.

Opining that it will be difficult to imagine a carry bag which does not fall within the descriptive part or parameters of Rule 3 (b), Gupta says: “After all, bags do not carry themselves, they have to be carried by human beings, and to read too much into the expression ‘self-carrying feature’ is to read it out of existence.”

In his opinion, the Secretary, Environment and Forests, too, highlights the ill effects of plastic carry bags.

His report reads: Plastic is non-biodegradable, it remains in the system as it is and according to some studies takes about 1,000 year to bio-degrade. Plastics block the roots of plants, stop the flow of underground water and prevent rainwater from entering into the earth, leading to soil erosion. Sometimes animals like cow eat these, which block their digestive system and can even cause death.”

It adds: “Plastic is a polymer of ethane (polythene) and once created it can almost never be destroyed. If burnt, it releases chloro-fluoro carbon gas, harming the ozone layer. If buried, it is harmful for the growth of plants. If thrown in the water, it disturbs marine life.”