District Legal Services Authority, Vishakhapatnam under the aegis of NALSA and the guidance of A.P. State Legal Services Authority conducted the Legal Services Programme (NALSA New Module Campaign) on “Say No To Plastics, Save Environment and Issues Relating To Unorganised Labour” on 02.06.2022 at the A. U. Convention Centre, Vishakhapatnam. Hon’ble Justice Uday Umesh Lalit, Judge, Supreme Court of India and Executive Chairman, NALSA was the Chief Guest at the event. Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra, Chief Justice and Patron-in-Chief, APSLSA High Court of A.P.,
Hon’ble Justice Ahsanuddin Amanullah, Judge, High Court of A.P. and Executive Chairman, APSLSA, Sri A. Hari Haranadha Sarma, Principal District Judge-cum-Chairman, DLSA, Vishakapatnam, Sri. S. Sriram Hon’ble Advocate General for the State of A.P., Sri V. Ravindra Prasad, President Bar Association, Vishakhapatnam and Sri K. Ramajogeswara Rao, Vice Chairman, Bar Council of A.P. were the guest at the programme.
Hon’ble Justice Uday Umesh Lalit started his address by speaking about his childhood days as how as a child he used to see his mother get the milk delivered in glass bottles which were replaceable and today’s generation sees milk being delivered in plastic bags or containers. His Lordship mentioned that way back in 1963 two scientists, i.e. Ziegler and Natta, received Noble prize for invention of plastic which could be used for normal day to day functions. Medical professionals used to have syringes which were made of glass which after every use the syringes needles would be boiled to sterilize in a container, all the medical professionals used to do that but today everything is getting replaced by single use syringes which just need to be thrown away. About 40% of plastic which is used in our daily life is single use plastic.
His Lordship mentioned that when it comes to management of plastic issues three Rs- Reuse, Recycle and Reduce should be kept in mind and that he would put one more R. The first is Reduce which means to reduce the consumption to the extent possible and second one is to reuse the material as if its regular steel utensil. The third which as a society we must impose or insist on is recycling of plastic materials i.e. whatever we are producing today, let it be recycled in one form or the other as another plastic item and if nothing of this is possible then refuse the use of plastic. How do we do that? We need to invent modalities, regimes and ideas. As a society we have seen one or two campaigns and that’s the impact of the societal kind of drive initiative such as in the case of Polio Eradication. Polio Eradication just happened because of educating people. Today we have almost zero per cent of patients who are affected by polio. Second campaign which the society undertook was no smoking campaign. Today in public places we have prohibited smoking. There is a large awareness which is going in the society that smoking is injurious to health. Whether it is by campaign such as advertisement, public awareness, whatever modality, we have now come to accept smoking is not something conducive to good health. His Lordship mentioned that there are host of people who say that plastic is essential to the day to day life such as the entire medical community would want the use of plastics to be allowed as it has made their life easy due to single use syringes and that’s where fissures in the society are bound to be there because some sections of the society are going to say that allow us the use of plastic while others would say that please don’t permit such use. This is where the campaign needs to have a sharper approach.
His Lordship stated that statistics actually show that out of 100% of plastic which is generated about 12% plastic is recycled, 9% plastic waste is destroyed and 79% continues to be the load on the Earth. And that’s the load that we carry. In Environmental science there are 3 principles which are well known principles. One, Polluter Pays’ i.e., whoever pollutes the environment, the environment whilst pollutes the earth must pay for the remedial measures; Two, Inter-generational Equity, if I have received the mother earth in a shape that is very conducive to environment then it is my obligation, it is my duty and it is my responsibility that I handover the Earth to my next generation in the same fashion, in the same capacity and in the same manner i.e., inter-generational equity. The third principle is actually referred to as Vellore Citizen’s Council, that to the extent possible given the circumstances, in environmental law, we must err to the safer side that given the options we can’t be adventurist, we will rather be conservative and err on the side which is the safer side.
His Lordship gave the classic example of the Kudremukh iron ore company from Karnataka which was a throbbing profit-making company in public sector which was in iron ore mining, under the orders of the Supreme Court was directed to be closed because the biodiversity in the area was getting affected. What the Supreme Court thought was, that yes iron ore can wait in the bowels of the earth if not extracted today, it may be extracted after 20 years, 50 years, but if the biodiversity of the area gets affected today then the entire gene pool coming from that area will get affected so adversely that perhaps it may be lost for eternity and let the Kudremukh iron ore company to stop for a while, that’s the approach to be adopted when it comes to environmental law, that when you
are in doubt, err on the safer side.
Similar approach needs to be adopted when it comes to plastic. We need to have an approach which is, divide or segregate functions which are to allow use of plastics only in those areas, otherwise, ban it completely when it comes to single use plastics.
The speakers who represented the Municipal Corporation, the Police Department and the administration were so vociferous and it is such a welcome idea that the administration is taking such giant strides to see that the plastics gets completely curtailed. We have new rules which are supposed to come into effect from 1 st July that single use plastic would be banned. The rules were promulgated in October. Sufficient time was given to the manufacturers because there are beautiful judgments from the National Green Tribunal which has actually put the responsibility on the manufacturer to say that the product that he is manufacturing is capable of getting degraded or it is not going to be a menace in case it is not recycled, on what is called Extended Producer’s Responsibility (EPR). This kind of onus which gets cast on the shoulders of the producers will certainly reduce the burden.
His Lordship stressed that wherever there is an alternative, wherever there can be paper bags, jute bags or steel plates or any other plates, discourage the use of plastic and discourage it to such an extent that the entire society must stand uniformly together and we must take that stride and say that we refuse to have these kind of plastic being swamp into the society.
His Lordship further added that NALSA is entrusted with the work which among others is environmental protection as well though this is not strictly legal aid. But making people aware of the environment, of the adverse impact of certain issues on environment is certainly part of legal education
His Lordship briefly touched upon the last issue which is the workers in the unorganized sector. There are large numbers of unorganized sector where great amount of worker is required to be done to uplift the plight of these workers. Houses are built, apartments are constructed, and buildings are put up. This contingent of workers who come there at the site, they stay there for about a year or two. After the project is completed, we don’t even know the identity of those persons .There is a legislation which is enacted by the central authorities which imposes cess on construction activities so that these workers can be provided some succor.
His Lordship stated that while dealing with a litigation wherein, huge amount of money was deposited by way of cess with the respective administrative bodies but because these construction workers had moved from one project to the other and their identities were not known there was a huge question mark on the column of the beneficiaries. So the areas which need to be worked upon are that
firstly there are no upliftment measures and if there are any, the large amounts of money collected is not dispersed.
His Lordship mentioned that we will need to start with the first area, at least wherever the executive has been aware of the problem and has taken measures and enacted statutory regime and whatever has been collected under that banner under that regime must reach the concerned beneficiaries which is again one wing of NALSA’s activity .
His Lordship concluded by saying that it is only the force of citizenry, it is only the force of the population, it is only the wisdom of the entire nation, which will determine what shall be the profile when it is we say no to plastics, we must say emphatically, No to Plastics.
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