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As the government takes more effective measures for single-use plastic ban by June end, the central pollution control board (CPCB) has issued directions to ecommerce companies in this regard.

“On the demand side, directions have been issued to ecommerce companies, leading single-use plastic sellers/users, and plastic raw material manufacturers with respect to phasing out of identified single-use plastic items,” CPCB said in a statement. 

It must be noted that single-use plastic items will not be allowed in the country from July 1, 2022. Plastic items that will be banned include earbuds with plastic sticks, wrapping or packaging films around sweet boxes, invitation cards, and cigarette packets, plastic or PVC banners less than 100 microns and stirrers, among others.

During the transition to alternatives to single-use plastic,  CPCB is organising workshops for MSMEs to support them. Three such Workshops have been held at Ranchi, Guwahati and Madurai till now. 

Earlier in April, the Delhi government also said it would support startups that come up with alternatives to single-use plastics to manage plastic waste and provide assistance to startups offering single-use plastic alternatives.

Considerably, the Indian ecommerce packaging segment, which was estimated at $ 451.4 Mn in 2019, is expected to reach $ 975.4 Mn by 2025 at 13.8% annually, according to a report by Indian Brand Equity Foundation.

Moreover, the global ecommerce industry contributes to plastic packaging and plastic packaging waste significantly. While the industry used approximately 2.1 Bn pounds of plastic packaging in 2019, it is expected to reach 4.5 Bn pounds by 2025, a report from Staistia said. 

Last year, ecommerce major Flipkart said it eliminated all single-use plastic packaging use across all its fulfillment centres across the country. Flipkart also said that it introduced scalable sustainable alternatives such as eco-friendly paper shreds, recycled paper bags, among others. 

Prior to that, Amazon also announced in 2020 that it eliminated all single-use plastic in packaging originating from its 50+ fulfillment centres in India.

Other ecommerce and food-delivery companies are also taking initiatives to reduce plastic use. In April this year, foodtech startup Zomato said it is introducing 100 per cent plastic neutral deliveries.

“From now on, every meal you order through Zomato will be 100% plastic neutral, which means we will voluntarily recycle more than 100 per cent of all plastic used in your order’s packaging,” Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal said.