Regional poison

Those living in the South Asia region, and likely many of those elsewhere too, are familiar with just how polluted the region is. This is one of the most noticeable things about life in the region. From the world’s most polluted air to the copious amounts of garbage strewn across its streets, the failure of governments across the region to develop effective waste-management systems has become a threat to the lives of their own people and the environment at large. According to a new report by the World Bank, ‘Waves of Plastics: A Snapshot of Marine Plastic Pollution in South Asia’, six out of the eight countries in the region are facilitating cross-border pollution via 20 major rivers. This takes the form plastics, micro plastics, industrial effluents and domestic wastewater leaking into the environment via rivers, streams and drains due to inadequate waste management. Single-use plastics such as ordinary plastic bags are a particular problem, with highly populated areas emerging as the largest sources for plastic-waste generation. In this way, the region’s rapid population and industrial growth has amplified its environmental problems. This is not just the case when it comes to the leakage of pollutants into the marine ecosystem but air pollution also.

The report notes that Sri Lanka has the highest plastic waste leakage rate in the region while Pakistan has the lowest. Meanwhile, India and the Maldives have the highest plastic waste collection rates. That being said, what all of the region’s major economies (Sri Lanka, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh) share in common is an important plastic production industry. Another commonality is weak waste-management systems across the region. The report notes that the problem spans the entire value-chain of plastic creation, use and disposal. From the outset, most plastics are not designed with recyclability in mind. This problem is then exacerbated by an inadequate waste collection and management infrastructure and a lack of formal recycling facilities. What waste collection and recycling does take place is largely informal and unregulated. This makes it hard to track how much waste there actually is, where it is and what resources are needed to deal with it.

As such, turning things around will require reforms across the entire life-cycle of a plastic product, from production to disposal. Aside from individual countries sorting out their waste management deficiencies, there is also a gaping hole when it comes to a holistic and common regional approach to all forms of pollution. Air and water do not recognize national boundaries and nor do the pollutants they carry and a shared problem can only be tackled by a shared solution. If even one country does not have adequate waste management and recycling policies in place, it will create pollution that affects all or most of the other countries in the region. However, this is a rather obvious point and it is hard to imagine that policymakers themselves have not noticed the need for a broader regional mechanism to manage pollution. The fact that one is still lacking is a symptom of a lack of regional cohesiveness. While other areas like Southeast Asia forge ahead when it comes to regional cooperation on a range of issues, South Asia tends to remain mired in the same old communal, religious and ethnic divides. This is at the expense of the health and well-being of South Asians everywhere.