Assignment Series -40

A CIRCULAR ECONOMY FOR PLASTIC

2021OD81

NAME: DHINAGARRAJ P
DEPARTMENT: MECHANICAL
ROLLNO:201ME118

1.FOREWORD:

Plastics are utilized in sort of applications including healthcare, automobiles, clean energy from
wind turbines to solar panels, and most significantly as packaging material for food and non-food
applications.Their benefits range from being lightweight, flexible, durable, to providing long shelf-life and
lots of more, and their use has increased twenty-fold within the past half-century, and is predicted to double
again within the next 20 years.

Further, with the arrival of consumerism, growing purchasing power, and better standard of living,the
convenience that plastic-based commodity and therefore the packaging provides for both food and non-
food applications is invaluable.

2. PLASTIC INDUSTRY IN INDIA :

The existing waste management practices are unable to support the urban waste generated, which
is becoming a major issue in India. Post-consumer plastic waste is collected as part of municipal solid waste
(MSW). At present, MSW is estimated to have collection efficiency as high as 85–86%. However, source
segregation is majorly lacking, which is leading to contamination of potentially recyclable dry waste
materials including plastics. Recyclable plastics, such as single polymer packaging (flexible or rigid), if not
segregated and instead mixed and contaminated with wet, food waste, will become nonrecyclable.

Contaminated or low value plastic waste that does not get collected, recycled, or reutilized gets
mismanaged. This waste mostly consists of low value, single-use plastics (SUPs) used widely as carry bags
or for food and small-sized packaging for FMCG products. Economic incentives do not exist that can
capture and prevent the leakage of these low value, contaminated, SUPs at the end of their short life into
the environment.

2.1. PLASTIC WASTE IN INDIA: CHALLENGES AND IMPLICATIONS:

Lack of technology entails mostly physical or mechanical recycling of plastics by cutting,

shredding, or washing into granulates, flakes or pellets of appropriate quality in a crude manner, which can
then be blended with virgin material for superior quality. Lack of formal channels, Standard Operating
Procedures (SOPs), and rudimentary recycling techniques lead to waste leakages during the recycling
process. The final recycled flakes/pellets/granules are not of superior quality and maybe contaminated with
other polymers or materials.

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Formal recycling is mainly limited to clean, segregated, pre-consumer waste in a few clusters in the country,
including those in western Indian states of Gujarat and Maharashtra as they have a robust recycling and
transport infrastructure and grid connectivity. These states also recycle pre- and postconsumer plastic waste
from far away states of Southern or Eastern India, which involves significant transportation costs.

3. EXISTING POLICY AND REGULATORY FRAMEWORK FOR PLASTIC

INDUSTRY IN INDIA:

In recent years, the Government of India (GOI) has considered and enacted various forms of
environmental legislations and regulations at the national, state, or local levels with respect to plastics,
particularly on the end-of-life management and mitigation of plastic waste pollution. But the effectiveness
of monitoring and enforcement of these measures is generally weak. The policy push towards resource
efficiency and circular economy in plastics is also relatively new and lacks a systematic approach.
Specifically, there is not much emphasis on unlocking the market potential of secondary plastics (recycled
plastics).

There is a growing recognition amongst the industry across the value chain to drive change upstream,
midstream, and complement the efforts being made downstream. Table 1 summarizes the existing
legislative and regulatory framework and its implications on plastics circularity.

Table 1:Circularity implications of legislative and regulatory framework for plastics in India

4.MATERIAL FLOW OF PLASTICS:

Plastic products are made up of different types of polymer resins (which can be typically identified
using resin codes printed on the products) and consumption for these resins is determined through
specifications required by the end-use applications/products. The resin codes were adopted by the Society
of the Plastics Industry (SPI) in 1988 to provide an industry-wide standard that would make it easier to
identify and sort recyclable plastics. These codes were adopted by Bureau of Indian Standards as IS

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14534:1998. Table 2 presents the major polymer resins, their common usage, and actual recycling status in
India.

There are five major polymers [polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polyethylene (PE),polyvinyl chloride
(PVC), PP, polystyrene (PS)] that are commonly used, particularly for consumer/ commodity packaging
and non-packaging plastic products. Different combination of dyes and additives are added to these
polymers to produce the desired colour, shape, and texture in the final plastic product. PE, which is the
most extensively consumed polymer, is made as high-density polyethylene (HDPE), low-density
polyethylene (LDPE), and linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) in household items, such as plastic
containers, bottles, bags, and plastic toys.

Table 2 Polymer resins application and actual status of recycling

5. CIRCULAR ECONOMY FOR PLASTICS IN INDIA: CHALLENGES AND

OPPORTUNITIES:

A resource-efficient circular economy for plastics is one that minimizes wasteful use of plastics,
produces plastics from renewable sources, is powered by renewable energy, reuses and recycles plastics
within the economy without leakage to the environment, and generates no or minuscule waste or emissions.

To enable this, the GOI through its Plastics Waste Management Rules, 2016 has mandated Extended Producer
Responsibility (EPR) that incorporates circularity by making manufacturers of products responsible for
collecting and processing their products upon the end of their lifetime. The objective of EPR is to minimize
the total environmental impact of waste materials from a product and encourage manufacturers/ brand owners
to create markets for reuse or recycling of materials.

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Table 3Circular economy for plastics in India and challenges.

6.REFERENCE:

1) Albertsson, A.-C., & Hakkarainen, M. (2017). Designed to degrade. Science, 358(6365), 872-873.
doi:10.1126/science.aap8115

2) Anastasia, M., & Nix, J. (n.d). Plastic Bag Levy in Ireland. Retrieved from
https://ieep.eu/uploads/articles/ attachments/0817a609-f2ed-4db0-8ae0
05f1d75fbaa4/IE%20Plastic%20Bag%20Levy%20final. pdf?v=63680923242

IMPACT OF CORONA VIRUS

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IN GLOBAL MARKETS
2021OD79
NAME: DHINAGARRAJ P
DEPARTMENT: MECHANICAL
ROLLNO: 201ME118

1.INTRODUCTION :

The coronavirus pandemic has reached almost every country in the world.
Its spread has left national economies and businesses counting the costs, as governments struggle with new
lockdown measures to tackle the spread of the virus. Despite the development of new vaccines, many are
still wondering what recovery could look like. Although the lowest point of the COVID-19 financial crash
occurred during March 2020 for all major stock markets, the subsequent recovery has been uneven. While
some markets (notably in the U.S.) rebounded to reach record highs by the end of 2020, others (such as in
the U.K.) remain below their pre-coronavirus peak.
Other types of financial markets have also seen variable pandemic-related developments over 2020.

2. PANDEMIC HAS CHANGED THE WORLD ECONOMY:

The IMF estimates that the global economy shrunk by 4.4% in 2020. ... Recovery in big, services-
reliant, economies that have been hit hard by the outbreak, such as the UK or Italy, is expected to be slow.
The COVID-19 pandemic has spread with alarming speed, infecting millions and bringing economic
activity to a near-standstill as countries imposed tight restrictions on movement to halt the spread of the
virus. As the health and human toll grows, the economic damage is already evident and represents the
largest economic shock the world has experienced in decades.

The June 2020 Global Economic Prospects describes both the immediate and near-term outlook for the
impact of the pandemic and the long-term damage it has dealt to prospects for growth. The baseline forecast
envisions a 5.2 percent contraction in global GDP in 2020, using market exchange rate weights—the
deepest global recession in decades, despite the extraordinary efforts of governments to counter the
downturn with fiscal and monetary policy support

3.INFLUENCE OF GOVERNMENT RESPONSES

Three factors related to governments’ responses to the pandemic influenced the uneven recovery of
financial markets: differing COVID-19 case rates among countries; coronavirus vaccination rates, and
differing levels of fiscal stimulus spending. Each of these three factors likely played a role in the speed of
recovery, however it is difficult to isolate the exact influence of each factor as countries generally show a
difference across more than one variable. For example, despite similar vaccination rates, the quicker
recovery of German financial markets than French was likely influenced by both Germany’s lower case
rates, and higher fiscal spending. Similarly, U.S. markets recovered faster than Germany’s, despite the
former’s higher case rates and proportionally lower fiscal stimulus. This cannot simply be attributed to the
U.S.’s higher vaccination rate though: initial U.S. stimulus spending was specifically targeted at capital;

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meanwhile U.K. financial markets remain below pre-corona levels, despite having one of highest
vaccination rates (although this is likely also affected by Brexit)

4.EFFECT OF COVID-19 ON DIFFERENT INDUSTRIES:

Another other important factor in the uneven post-corona recovery of financial markets is the
question of what types of companies operate in which markets. It is telling that the NASDAQ – which is
comprised largely of companies in the technology sector - recovered more quickly than other stock
exchanges. The NASDAQ is home to many of the fastest growing companies in 2020, with many of these
companies (such as Amazon and PayPal) being beneficiaries of the growth in online retailing precipitated
by lockdowns. Conversely, companies which lost the most value over 2020 tended to operate in more
traditional industries – notably energy and tourism. This is not surprising given the reduction in tourism
and commuting during the pandemic. Accordingly, financial markets with a high concentration of shares
for companies benefiting from the pandemic recovered more quickly than more diversified, traditional
markets.

Table 4 Economic growth

5.WORLD ECONOMIC STRUGGLING WITH RISSING UNEMPLOYMENT:

Emerging economies are facing an unprecedented health and economic crisis. The synchronous
collapse in global demand and the widespread disruptions in supply chains are inflicting severe economic

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pain through trade, financial and commodity prices channels. To contain the pandemic, emerging
economies have imposed, to varying degrees, lockdowns and social distancing measures, further disrupting
economic activity. India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, the Russian Federation and South Africa have
implemented full or partial lockdowns. But even as countries have followed different approaches to contain
the COVID-19 pandemic, enforcement has in many cases been difficult as a result of high population
density in major cities.

6. COVID 19 AND US ECONOMY:

After the initial phase of the crisis, which now seems to have passed in some of the initially most
affected areas of the United States (as well as some European countries), we expect a staged and likely
protracted recovery. This will require a return of patient confidence (a particular problem in the most
affected urban areas) as a basis for the safe reintroduction of normal clinical operations, in which addressing
chronic conditions, such as cardiovascular diseases and cancer, will again become a priority.

7.REFERANCE :

1. United States unemployment rate. Trading Economics website. https://tradingeconomics.com/united-

states/unemployment-rate. Accessed June 15, 2020.
2. Cajner T, Crane L, Decker R, et al. The US Labor Market During the Beginning of the Pandemic
Recession. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Becker Friedman Institute of Economics; 2020. Working
paper 2020-58.

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