‘Plastic Pollution’ and Plastics as Pollution in Mumbai, India

ABSTRACT

In the last decade, plastic pollution has emerged as a major global issue in public discourse. Nonetheless, there is little consensus on which aspects of plastics constitute the problem. In India, litter, unmanaged disposal, lack of biodegradation, wasteful resource use, threats to bodily integrity and the natural order, and national dishonour are all variously associated with ‘plastic pollution’. What exactly, then, does the term reference when used in various streams of public discourse, and what semantic transformations does this imply? Using India as a case study, I examine discourses about plastic pollution and tease out four prominent framings, or senses, of such pollution – as spatial displacement, as waste, as environmental pollution, and as symbolic pollution – and explore their mobilisation by stakeholders. I also make the case for greater attention to the aesthetic dimension as a heuristic framework in knowing and acting upon pollution.

KEYWORDS:

• Plastics
• pollution
• aesthetics
• litter
• environment
• waste
• India

Acknowledgements

I am indebted to all my interlocutors for their gracious participation. My thanks also to Brigitte Steger and the participants of the Social Life of Plastic conference–workshop and to the anonymous reviewers for their comments on early versions of this article.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In an entry written by a member of the Plastic Pollution Coalition.

2 Initially slated to take force in October 2019, this was postponed for economic reasons.

3 Meanwhile, executives in the plastic industry blamed irresponsible consumers and inadequate governance, and government officials blamed corporations for excessive plastic use and consumer–citizens for a lack of civic consciousness.

4 To be held as seminars but forced online by the COVID-19 crisis.

5 A situation that plastic industry representatives stress, framing uncertainty as a lack of evidence.

Additional information

Funding

The research for this article was supported by the Homi Bhabha Fellowship (2016–2018), awarded by the Homi Bhabha Fellowships Council, and an Ekstrapuljen grant from the Aarhus Universitets Forskningsfond.