My name is Dev Thomas, I go to St. Mary’s school, I am a grade 3 student. I live in New Delhi, the capital city of India. I’m here because I am against the use of single-use plastic in our daily lives. I go to a school which is a single-use plastic-free zone and I wish for my city to be the same. Therefore, I am writing this petition with the help of my sister to the concerned authorities to ban single-use plastic in my city. Please help me make my city a cleaner place.

Sustainability Times says that plastic is light, cheap, and easy to use, which is why single-use plastics are used by most of the people. However, these plastic products are very dangerous for our environment. According to a report written by the Centre for International Environment Law, single-use plastics, which are produced and disposed of in billions leave a massive carbon footprint. Almost all plastic products including single-use plastics are made using fossil fuels and this process of making plastic requires a lot of energy which increases emissions. The growing use of single-use plastics pollutes the air with harmful chemicals and we already know that the air quality in Delhi gets very bad. This can also contribute to the rise in temperature.

According to The Times of India the Delhi Pollution Control Committee had imposed a fine of Rs. 1 crore on vendors in different areas for using plastic bags of less than 50 microns in thickness. Surprise checks were carried out in the months of May and June in 2019. Many of these bags were seized and the violators had to pay heavy fines towards environmental damages. Though this measure taken by the government helped control the situation in some ways, it is not enough. A large amount of permissible single-use plastic still harms the environment in many ways, it not only contributes to increasing carbon footprints but is also harmful to animals as they make choke on it. Therefore, I feel it is very important to ban single-use plastic as much as possible.

Earthday.org states that the promised single-use plastic ban in India that was supposed to come into action on October 2nd, 2019 was put on hold by the government, this ban was expected to bring down plastic consumption by 5-10 percent. However, it was not implemented. Furthermore, according to TOI, even the Delhi government would allow the use of plastic bags made of more than 50 microns. A CPCB report stated that, in 2015, 689.5 tonnes of plastic waste was produced in Delhi EVERYDAY! That is as much as the weight of 200 elephants! 80 percent of this plastic was NOT recycled was has been polluting our city in different ways.

While I see a lot of steps being taken by the government to reduce the usage of single-use plastic such as no straws and no plastic cutlery in fast food joints such as Mc Donald’s, paper/ cloth bags being used by stores and many more. But I still see A LOT of plastic being used in the form of polythene bags in shops, by vegetable and fruit vendors, and in the form of plastic packaging. While these plastic bags are more than 50 microns thick, they are still very harmful to the environment. Often, this plastic is not disposed of in the correct manner and left in landfills where it is eventually burnt this contributes to a higher carbon footprint as well as releases toxic chemicals. Therefore, I request the concerned authorities to please ban single-use plastic once and for all and encourage people to use alternatives such as cloth bags or recycled paper bags. I am sure  we humans can survive without single-use plastic. I hope the needful steps are taken by the authorities.  Please support me in this cause by signing this petition to make my city Delhi a single-use plastic-free zone.