The first day of the nationwide ban on 17 single-use plastic items saw zero-impact in Hyderabad. The city squares were festooned with thin, colourful plastic flags that were explicitly banned under the new regulation.
At the biggest wholesale market for plastic products in the city in Begum Bazar, it was business as usual. “ Chal raha hai. We are not affected,” said the owner of Maharaja Polymers while juggling calls on two phones as workers carted bags of plastic material from inside the shop in Begum Bazar area. Dozens of shops line the area near Begum Bazar Fish Market and some of them have manufacturing facilities in the Katedan area.
“This shop is small, but nearly 100 people survive on this. The men who cart the bags, the men who transport the material, the workers in the factory and the salespeople, and there are countless other people dependent on this business,” said Sudhakar, who has been trading in plastic bags of all sizes for the past 22 years. “We deal with bags thicker than 75 microns and will move to 125 microns from January,” he said.
