Mumbai: Plastic ban goes down the drain, BMC blames it on slum dwellers

Despite the ban on the use of plastic bags since June last year, tonnes of dumped plastic refuse has been clogging the nullahs across the city disrupting the flow of water.

The state government implemented its plastic ban policy from June 23 last year. The reason was that these plastic bags form the bulk of floating material in nullahs, leading to clogging and subsequent flooding.

However, almost a year later, the ban hardly made any difference. The civic body is finding a lot of it clogging the nullahs while cleaning or de-silt drains ahead of this year's monsoon. "Plastic items, especially bags, choke water flow and is one of the reasons behind waterlogging in parts of the city. There isn't much difference in the amount of plastic bags we are pulling out of drains this year," said an officer from the stormwater drainage.

"We have five nullahs in the ward. There may be a slight difference in plastic bags quantity but it's hard to spot," said Alka Kerkar, corporator from Bandra west.

"No one is taking Dattak Vasti Yojana properly where BMC collects garbage twice a day from slum households. The slum dwellers dump their daily garbage in plastic bags, while we spend crores of rupees to clean them," said Rajul Patel, corporator from Jogeshwari.

"The quantity of plastic bottles dumped in drains has increased. Plastic bags might not be visible in silts, but the havoc they wreak can be witnessed during monsoons, during a flood. Every year BMC workers remove thousands of plastic bags which accumulate and choke the drains," said a ward officer from the Eastern suburbs.

"The southern part of the city has a closed drainage system. Thus, the nuisance of plastic bags is not felt here," said Rais Shaikh, a corporator from Samajwadi Party.