Myth Of 50-micron Film Thickness

The Restriction On Minimum Thickness Of 50 Micron On Every Type Of Packaging Film Does Not Give Any Advantage. It Needs To Be Removed. On The Contrary, It Defeats The Principle Of 3rs (Reduce, Reuse And Recycle).

- Professor D. D. Kale

Plastics Waste Management Rules, PWM 2016, have banned the carry bags made from film less than 50 micron. Later many states have banned almost every type of packaging film of thickness less than 50 micron. What is the logistic behind 50 micron? Around 1990, carry bags were made with thickness about six microns. The freely dispensed carry bags created environmental problems. Many NGOs even advocated openly that all plastics are carcinogenic. The weight of carry bags was less than 2 gm. The rag pickers were not finding it attractive to pick up the carry bags lying around or present in household waste. The light carry bags, at times leaked into water ways and into oceans. The beaches were getting littered with such carry bags. Considering the low weight of thin carry bags, later on the Maharashtra Government banned the plastic bags of less than 20 micron. The ban, however, could not be implemented effectively. Perhaps the bags were made thinner than 20 microns and still distributed freely by vendors. The thought process of increasing the thickness more than 20 microns was that increasing the thickness would increase the weight of bag to about 5 gm and the rag pickers would find it attractive to pick up. However, this did not happen, and the problem of eye soar of littered carry bags became even more intense. The Government recommended that thickness be increased to 40 micron. Now the new rules recommend the thickness to be 50 micron.

Banning is not the answer

Banning all packaging films of thickness less than 50 microns is not technically sound. Just because thickness of carry bags has to be more than 50 microns, it cannot justify the ban on special purpose functional films also to be of 50 micron. The reasons are given below.

Usefulness of plastic films in packaging