Plastic pollution and the uneven burden of compliance

It was August 2022, a few days after India had banned single-use plastics. We were in a small town in eastern Uttar Pradesh and had ordered food from a local dhaba. The delivery person from the dhaba arrived late, holding out a flimsy paper container that had collapsed in the summer heat.
'The food spilled on the way,' he said apologetically. 'They banned plastic, but no one told us what to use instead. Paper tears. Those new boxes are too expensive.'
His frustration was quiet but sharp. What we had seen as a progressive environmental move suddenly felt like a burden unfairly passed on. The ban was bold, but the policy gap was clear, and the cost was being paid by people with the least alternatives.
This incident made us realise: people don't resist change because they lack awareness. They resist it when the system makes doing the right thing harder than doing nothing. We often expect individual discipline to make up for institutional failure. But when a plastic-free life requires constant effort and expense, and plastic use is cheap and easy, what real choice are we offering?
Behaviour, after all, isn't isolated. It follows design. If we want people to choose differently, the system must make that choice easier. As behavioural economists remind us, the architecture around a decision shapes the decision itself. In India's plastic story, that architecture still lags behind our ambitions.
This is where solution design matters. More than bans, we need to focus on what replaces plastic and how those alternatives are priced, distributed, reused, and recovered. What is their environmental and financial footprint? And how does it compare across materials?
Some places have struck this balance by engineering sustainability into daily life. Indore, for example, has been ranked India's cleanest city for seven years. Its success rests on a multi-layered approach that includes segregation at source, door-to-door collection, real-time tracking, and processing infrastructure that functions like clockwork. The brilliance lies in making good behaviour feel ordinary, because the system supports it at every step.
In South Korea, a 'Pay As You Throw' system charges households based on the amount of non-recyclable waste they generate. General waste is placed in specially marked bags, but food waste is weighed in RFID-enabled bins that calculate disposal fees in real time. These systems reshape waste behaviour through pricing, feedback, and infrastructure – not moral appeals.
While reducing plastic use is crucial, it's just as important to manage its full lifecycle. Plastic isn't going away anytime soon. What matters now is how we manage it better? Take Germany and the Netherlands. They each use 30 to 50 kg of plastic per person annually, yet very little ends up unmanaged. What sets them apart is not lower consumption, but tighter systems with clear rules and infrastructure that close the loop.
In contrast, India produced about 10.8 million tonnes of plastic waste in 2023 (roughly 7.6 kg per person). An estimated 70% of this was mismanaged, leading to serious environmental leakage. Our policy response needs to move beyond bans and tackle system design. For instance, a cotton tote used twice can have a higher footprint than a plastic bag reused ten times. Even biodegradable materials can do harm if not processed properly.
In a country as diverse as India, we need to understand whether interventions are working, which ones work best, and in what context. This requires a new data infrastructure, one that's localised, adaptive, and built for course correction. Across our work in WASH, sustainability, and rural livelihoods, we've found that the most effective interventions combine behavioural nudges with real-time data. But these insights don't come from top-down metrics. They come from proximity to context.
As our economy grows and consumption patterns shift, we need to look at plastic through a new lens, one that moves beyond compliance. A national plastic impact taxonomy could help shift the focus from intent to measurable outcomes, and help answer critical questions: How much plastic is being kept out of ecosystems? How strong are reuse and recovery systems? How resilient is our local waste infrastructure?
This could begin with piloting a Plastic Impact Index at the district level, co-developed with state pollution boards. A national repository of material footprint data could help compare alternatives more effectively across states and sectors.
Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) offers another promising blueprint, but its enforcement often falters without data or feedback loops. While formal recovery systems have made some headway in cities, they're largely missing in rural and peri-urban India. The FMCG sector – among the biggest contributors to plastic packaging, continues to operate with thin accountability. This gap undermines the real-world promise of EPR.
To strengthen the system, recovery targets should be linked to where plastic waste actually ends up. If a product is consumed in a small town, responsibility for collecting that waste shouldn't fall through the cracks simply because it's outside a metro. Making plastic traceable via QR codes or verified recovery slips, can help close the loop and add transparency to a system that is still blurry.
FMCG companies also need to invest in recovery infrastructure, especially where formal systems don't exist. An adaptive taxonomy, powered by contextualised, ground-level data, can enable smarter course correction, while publicly. Publicly accessible EPR dashboards would bring accountability, revealing which companies are meeting their targets and which are not. Combined with stronger local checks, EPR can move from being a rulebook to a real tool for building circular and inclusive systems.
That story from eastern UP is a reminder that plastic pollution doesn't unfold the same way everywhere. In some places, it clogs village drains. In others, it seeps into rivers or piles onto landfills. Different communities face different versions of the problem, often with fewer resources and less control over the systems meant to serve them. When policies treat all places the same, they risk leaving many behind. What we need instead are flexible systems that default to equity and are designed around people's lived realities.
We don't need a perfect system. We need a better one, one that makes the right choice the easier one.
This article is authored by Anubrata Basu, deputy vice president, research and communication and Abhishek Sharma, deputy vice president, research, Sambodhi Research & Communications.

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• Yahoo

RFID credit cards: Should you worry about protection?

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Most major issuers have integrated this technology into all of their new cards, but like any credit card you carry, you should still take precautions to ensure that your card is safe from identity thieves and fraudsters. But if you're wondering how safe RFID credit card technology is in particular, you're in for some good news. Before we get into the safety aspect, however, let's start with understanding how an RFID card actually works. An RFID credit card is equipped with radio frequency identification technology. This allows your credit card to communicate with a payment terminal using a radio frequency instead of a magnetic strip. RFID technology allows you to simply tap or wave your credit card near a card reader or ATM. Using this technology to make purchases gives you the ability to complete transactions within seconds. Plus, your card never has to leave your hand, minimizing contact with the card terminal and the likelihood of leaving your card in the reader. While RFID technology is becoming the norm for new credit cards, not all cards have been updated with the technology. Older cards that might not have hit their expiration date yet, for example, might still be missing this technology. If you're not sure whether your card is RFID-enabled, you can easily check by taking a look at the card. RFID-enabled cards have a symbol on the front or back of the card that looks like a Wi-Fi icon turned on its side. This symbol is meant to represent the radio frequency used by the card to make it contactless. If your card has that symbol, you should be able to make purchases with a wave or a tap of your card. To be sure, you can test it the next time you go to a shop, ATM or gas station pump. When you're at the payment terminal, look for the contactless symbol on the card reader, which looks the same as the symbol on your card. Then, simply tap your card on the payment terminal to complete your transaction. RFID credit cards are considered to be as safe as EMV chip cards, and data theft concerning RFID cards is uncommon. This is because of how these cards transmit information and what information is shared. Unlike traditional credit cards, RFID cards use one-time codes to complete each transaction. Every time you use your RFID card, a new code is created, thus making it more difficult for your information to be compromised. However, just because theft using this technology is uncommon doesn't mean it's impossible to do. Because RFID credit cards work via radio frequencies, some thieves have begun targeting these credit cards by using RFID readers. These readers could potentially pick up your card information without your knowledge by getting close enough to your card to pick up on the radio frequency. For this reason, there are quite a few products on the market, such as sleeves and wallets, that claim to have RFID protection. However, these products are not necessary to keep your RFID credit cards safe. For a person to compromise your card information, they would have to get very close to you — typically a few inches max — with an RFID reader that could pick up the signal. That signal is incredibly weak, so there would have to be practically no barriers between the card and the card reader. This means that if you already have your card in a wallet or bag, it's likely protected enough from the range of an RFID reader. Plus, even if a reader is able to pick up the signal, it could run into issues with the other contactless cards in your wallet also sending out signals. These readers are typically unable to scan multiple cards at once, so they could have trouble singling out one card to read anyway. On top of that, because of the one-time codes that we mentioned earlier, it's unlikely that a thief could store your card information to use over and over like they could when they have your physical credit card. Bankrate's take While it is technically possible for a thief to find a way to skim your RFID card, they would have to work quite hard to do so. If you do find yourself targeted for credit card fraud and identity theft, regardless of how it happens, report the theft immediately. The faster you do so, the more likely that your bank or card issuer will cover the fraudulent charges under their liability policy. RFID credit cards are some of the most secure credit cards at our disposal, but it's still good to take precautions as with any other credit card. Here are some tips that can help you get started: Set up mobile alerts for all of your accounts. Mobile alerts will give you a notification any time your card is used, allowing you to immediately identify suspicious charges. Make sure you have a strong password for your online accounts. If you're worried about losing your password or forgetting it, you can take advantage of a password management app like Dashlane or LastPass. Just avoid saving your password on websites via your browser if possible. Take the time to review your credit card statements and credit report routinely. These tools document activity in your accounts and give you a clear picture of how your card is being used and what you're being charged for, so it's a good idea to review them each week to catch early signs of fraud. You can get free weekly credit reports by using the government-authorized website RFID credit cards allow you to pay with a tap, rather than inserting or swiping your card. Special RFID-blocking wallets and sleeves, despite their popularity, generally aren't necessary for security because the technology requires an obstruction-free environment and extreme proximity to the card that's being targeted. In other words, most materials — such as a regular wallet, a purse or a pocket — will prevent the RFID technology from working, making it tough for a scammer to tap your card without your knowledge. If you don't currently have a card with this technology and want one, consider contacting your card issuer. They could likely send you a replacement card with this feature. Most of today's top credit cards will already have this feature included, but you can always reach out to the issuer to double-check before you apply.

Hindustan Times

05-06-2025

• Hindustan Times

Plastic pollution and the uneven burden of compliance

It was August 2022, a few days after India had banned single-use plastics. We were in a small town in eastern Uttar Pradesh and had ordered food from a local dhaba. The delivery person from the dhaba arrived late, holding out a flimsy paper container that had collapsed in the summer heat. 'The food spilled on the way,' he said apologetically. 'They banned plastic, but no one told us what to use instead. Paper tears. Those new boxes are too expensive.' His frustration was quiet but sharp. What we had seen as a progressive environmental move suddenly felt like a burden unfairly passed on. The ban was bold, but the policy gap was clear, and the cost was being paid by people with the least alternatives. This incident made us realise: people don't resist change because they lack awareness. They resist it when the system makes doing the right thing harder than doing nothing. We often expect individual discipline to make up for institutional failure. But when a plastic-free life requires constant effort and expense, and plastic use is cheap and easy, what real choice are we offering? Behaviour, after all, isn't isolated. It follows design. If we want people to choose differently, the system must make that choice easier. As behavioural economists remind us, the architecture around a decision shapes the decision itself. In India's plastic story, that architecture still lags behind our ambitions. This is where solution design matters. More than bans, we need to focus on what replaces plastic and how those alternatives are priced, distributed, reused, and recovered. What is their environmental and financial footprint? And how does it compare across materials? Some places have struck this balance by engineering sustainability into daily life. Indore, for example, has been ranked India's cleanest city for seven years. Its success rests on a multi-layered approach that includes segregation at source, door-to-door collection, real-time tracking, and processing infrastructure that functions like clockwork. The brilliance lies in making good behaviour feel ordinary, because the system supports it at every step. In South Korea, a 'Pay As You Throw' system charges households based on the amount of non-recyclable waste they generate. General waste is placed in specially marked bags, but food waste is weighed in RFID-enabled bins that calculate disposal fees in real time. These systems reshape waste behaviour through pricing, feedback, and infrastructure – not moral appeals. While reducing plastic use is crucial, it's just as important to manage its full lifecycle. Plastic isn't going away anytime soon. What matters now is how we manage it better? Take Germany and the Netherlands. They each use 30 to 50 kg of plastic per person annually, yet very little ends up unmanaged. What sets them apart is not lower consumption, but tighter systems with clear rules and infrastructure that close the loop. In contrast, India produced about 10.8 million tonnes of plastic waste in 2023 (roughly 7.6 kg per person). An estimated 70% of this was mismanaged, leading to serious environmental leakage. Our policy response needs to move beyond bans and tackle system design. For instance, a cotton tote used twice can have a higher footprint than a plastic bag reused ten times. Even biodegradable materials can do harm if not processed properly. In a country as diverse as India, we need to understand whether interventions are working, which ones work best, and in what context. This requires a new data infrastructure, one that's localised, adaptive, and built for course correction. Across our work in WASH, sustainability, and rural livelihoods, we've found that the most effective interventions combine behavioural nudges with real-time data. But these insights don't come from top-down metrics. They come from proximity to context. As our economy grows and consumption patterns shift, we need to look at plastic through a new lens, one that moves beyond compliance. A national plastic impact taxonomy could help shift the focus from intent to measurable outcomes, and help answer critical questions: How much plastic is being kept out of ecosystems? How strong are reuse and recovery systems? How resilient is our local waste infrastructure? This could begin with piloting a Plastic Impact Index at the district level, co-developed with state pollution boards. A national repository of material footprint data could help compare alternatives more effectively across states and sectors. Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) offers another promising blueprint, but its enforcement often falters without data or feedback loops. While formal recovery systems have made some headway in cities, they're largely missing in rural and peri-urban India. The FMCG sector – among the biggest contributors to plastic packaging, continues to operate with thin accountability. This gap undermines the real-world promise of EPR. To strengthen the system, recovery targets should be linked to where plastic waste actually ends up. If a product is consumed in a small town, responsibility for collecting that waste shouldn't fall through the cracks simply because it's outside a metro. Making plastic traceable via QR codes or verified recovery slips, can help close the loop and add transparency to a system that is still blurry. FMCG companies also need to invest in recovery infrastructure, especially where formal systems don't exist. An adaptive taxonomy, powered by contextualised, ground-level data, can enable smarter course correction, while publicly. Publicly accessible EPR dashboards would bring accountability, revealing which companies are meeting their targets and which are not. Combined with stronger local checks, EPR can move from being a rulebook to a real tool for building circular and inclusive systems. That story from eastern UP is a reminder that plastic pollution doesn't unfold the same way everywhere. In some places, it clogs village drains. In others, it seeps into rivers or piles onto landfills. Different communities face different versions of the problem, often with fewer resources and less control over the systems meant to serve them. When policies treat all places the same, they risk leaving many behind. What we need instead are flexible systems that default to equity and are designed around people's lived realities. We don't need a perfect system. We need a better one, one that makes the right choice the easier one. This article is authored by Anubrata Basu, deputy vice president, research and communication and Abhishek Sharma, deputy vice president, research, Sambodhi Research & Communications.

Cision Canada

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• Cision Canada

Tecsys Introduces ESL+, an Interactive Shelf Labeling Solution for Hospital Inventory Management Français

Next-generation digital label brings clinical-first visibility, automation and feedback loop to the point of use hospital supply chain. NASHVILLE, Tenn., June 2, 2025 /CNW/ -- Tecsys Inc. (TSX: TCS), a global leader in supply chain management solutions, today announced the launch of ESL+, its next-generation electronic shelf label engineered to support hospital inventory management at the point of use. Purpose-built for healthcare environments, ESL+ introduces real-time interaction at the shelf, allowing clinical and supply chain staff to locate, reorder and manage supplies with greater speed and precision. Featuring two programmable buttons and an integrated LED light indicator, ESL+ combines tactile control, visual guidance and digital connectivity into a single smart label. The result is a clinical-first supply chain tool that reduces search time, eliminates manual tracking and improves restocking workflows. The solution is natively integrated with Tecsys' Elite™ Point of Use (POU) platform, enabling organizations to extend automation across a full spectrum of clinical inventory. "ESL+ reimagines the role of the shelf label as an interactive tool that combines visibility with action in healthcare supply environments," said Martin Schryburt, senior vice president, Product and Technology. "This innovation supports our customers' goals of reducing waste, improving availability and minimizing supply chain burden on clinical staff." Key capabilities of ESL+ include: Replenishment at the shelf through a programmable button A dedicated urgent restock trigger for stockouts On-shelf alerts for expiration, recall and backorder notifications Seamless integration with Tecsys' Elite™ Point of Use solutions, including RFID-enabled Kanban and case cart workflows Additional enhancements, including integrated LED item location assistance, are planned for future releases. Designed specifically for healthcare, ESL+ provides an actionable touchpoint for inventory control that aligns with clinical workflows. As part of the broader Tecsys platform, ESL+ helps reduce supply-related delays and manual processes while supporting a more responsive and accurate replenishment cycle, all from the point of care. The technology is designed to be deployed easily across existing bins and shelves, minimizing retrofit requirements. ESL+ is currently available as part of Tecsys' integrated Elite™ Point of Use solution portfolio. For more information, visit About Tecsys Tecsys is a global provider of advanced supply chain solutions. With a commitment to innovation and customer success, the company equips organizations with the essential software, technology and expertise needed for operational excellence and competitive advantage. Its cloud solutions serve a diverse range of industries, including healthcare, distribution and converging commerce, across multiple complex, regulated and high-volume markets. Built on the Itopia® low-code application platform, Tecsys' offerings include enterprise resource planning, warehouse management, consolidated service management, distribution and transportation management, supply management at the point of use and order management solutions. Tecsys provides critical data insights and control across the supply chain, ensuring that organizations are agile, responsive and scalable. Tecsys is publicly traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol TCS. For more about Tecsys and its solutions, please visit Copyright © Tecsys Inc. 2025. All names, trademarks, products, and services mentioned are registered or unregistered trademarks of their respective owners. SOURCE Tecsys Inc.