By IANS,
New Delhi: The Supreme Court Monday issued notice on a petition seeking to restrain seven makers of chewing tobacco from using a type of plastic material to package their products.
Judges G.S. Singhvi and C.K. Prasad issued the notice after petitioner Abani Sahu told them that some of the companies continued to use harmful plastic material VMCH solution vinyl resin for packing chewing tobacco.
The notice is returnable by July 6.
The petitioner said the outer most cover of the products were made of paper but the tobacco inside was packaged in the harmful plastic material.
VMCH solution vinyl resin is a form of plastic material with a high molecular weight and is believed to be harmful to environment.
The petitioner said the action of the manufacturers was not only a serious violation of law but posed “a real and serious threat to the environment” and health of the people.
The Supreme Court had in December 2010 banned plastic sachet from March 1, 2011.
The petitioner said that the chewing tobacco manufactures had also stopped printing the mandatory date of manufacture on the packets.
Sahu said that such violation could not have occurred on the “scale, magnitude and extent without active collusion or tacit connivance of the officials of the enforcement machinery of the government”.
The petition sought direction to the authorities to test the samples of these packets to ascertain their plastic contents.