Mysuru’s role in handling plastic waste has been praised nationally as the Mysore City Corporation (MCC) has become the first urban local body in Karnataka to earn an Extended Producers’ Responsibility (EPR) certificate for Category-III plastic waste and second in the country to earn the EPR certificate, after Indore in Madhya Pradesh.
Incidentally, Indore is the cleanest city in the country. Mysuru was once the country’s cleanest city but its ranking dropped after a few years.
The MCC has earned the EPR certificate for recycling 11 metric tonnes of plastic waste (packaging plastic waste). The waste has been recycled into paver tiles, benches and so on. The MCC has joined hands with a private player for reusing single-use plastic, and has been into the making of reusable goods since the last three years.
Its effort has now now been appreciated amidst the guidelines from the Central Pollution Control Board. Under the new guidelines, the producers, importers and brand owners (PIBOs) have to register through the online centralised portal developed by the CPCB. MCC is moving forward to make waste management environmentally and economically sustainable, and enter EPR chain link through registering with the EPR portal of CPCB.
MCC Health Officer Dr. D.G. Nagaraj told The Hindu that MCC has been turning the multilayer plastic waste into useful products, thereby not dumping it into landfills. Ideally, the packaging plastic waste is burnt in cement factories. Since we do not have any cement factory nearby and transportation to factories located in the H-K region was expensive, the MCC tied up with a private player who came forward to recycle the single-use plastic into tiles, benches and other products, he explained.
“By this way, we have found a solution to the problem. At the same time, we earn the EPR certificate which can help us earn revenue,” he said.
Around two tonnes of multilayer plastic waste is supplied to the plant after segregation for the process. “This has created a circular economy.”
Extended Producers’ Responsibility regime is under implementation in plastic waste management rules, 2016, according to which it is the responsibility of the producers, brand owners and importers to ensure processing of plastic packaging waste through recycling, reuse or end of life disposal (such as co processing/waste to energy/plastic to oil/road making/industrial composting), according to the MCC.
