Nothing, obviously, was mentioned about the non-existent Waste Management programme of the BMC. Waste management, waste disposal and waste recycling - a lot of words but very little importance accorded to them by the powers that be.

In its anxiety to show the people of Mumbai that it had done something worthwhile, the government went right ahead and banned the use of thin variety of plastic. The law formally came into place this year and the minimum thickness was raised from 20 micron to 50 micron. Good show, guys!

Well, now that we have banned the 20 micron bags and forced all manufacturers to switch over to the thicker 50 micron bags there shouldn’t have been any flooding this year, right? Wrong. The bags, which earlier used to “go with the flow”, have started clogging drains even more since they are thicker now.

The ban has not really made people move away from plastic, they have just moved to the thicker variety. The result is that prices of all plastic raw materials have gone up by about 15-20 per cent over the past few months. And guess who is paying for all of this? You and I are.

The manufacturers of these basic raw materials are laughing all the way to the bank, since now they are getting a higher price on account of the sudden increase in demand; and are also actually selling more volumes.

Other manufacturers, who use this plastic to pack their products, are facing an increase in packaging costs, which they promptly pass onto the unwitting customers - you and me. And it’s double whammy for us as not only does the flooding continue, but we now have to bear these increases as well.

Meanwhile, the government is completely silent on the much-needed Waste Management, Waste Disposal and Waste Recycling plans.

Hats off to the politicians! I hope the delimitation of constituencies which plan on giving more seats to the urban areas will force these people to “look after” their vote-banks if not out of their own civic sense, but at least out of their own selfish need to "preserve" their seats.

Maybe we should also ban a few politicians who make irresponsible rules without understanding the consequences of the laws they promulgate.

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