India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, pledged to ban single-use plastics during his Independence Day Speech in Delhi on 15 August. The move is part of a broader push by the government and industry groups to reduce plastic waste across India. As a result the world's largest democracy is home to vast trash mountains that loom over the outskirts of major cities, and huge quantities of plastic end up in the water by way of the Ganges. ’s plastic is discarded and most India cities fail to process waste, according to the ministry of environment’s central pollution control board. India’s Ganges river is second only to the Yangtze in China in the volume of plastic it contributes to the world’s oceans. In 2018, Modi called for a crackdown on plastic pollution and said India would eradicate single-use plastic by 2022.
India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, pledged to ban single-use plastics during his Independence Day Speech in Delhi on 15 August. The move is part of a broader push by the government and industry groups to reduce plastic waste across India. ’s plastic is discarded and most India cities fail to process waste, according to the ministry of environment’s central pollution control board. India’s Ganges river is second only to the Yangtze in China in the volume of plastic it contributes to the world’s oceans. In 2018, Modi called for a crackdown on plastic pollution and said India would eradicate single-use plastic by 2022.