The ban by the state of Maharashtra, home to India’s financial capital of Mumbai, could sharply raise costs for companies that rely heavily on plastic for packaging, such as retailers, beverage makers and sellers of bottled water.
Maharashtra’s move, the first such broad action against plastic by an Indian state, comes as Prime Minister Narendra Modi pushes a plan to completely end the use of single-use plastic in India by 2022.
Plastic packaging accounts for nearly half of all plastic waste globally, and much of it is thrown away within just a few minutes of its first use, according to the United Nations.
Representatives of companies including Amazon, H&M, Pepsi and Coca-Cola, as well as plastic industry bodies and lobby groups, met with Maharashtra government officials days before the ban came into effect on June 23, urging them to implement the rule in phases and relax some norms, said the four sources who declined to be named.
