Plastic bans spread in India. Winners and losers aren't who you'd expect.
As the world's second largest country takes on a glut of plastic waste by targeting single-use items, some results are surprising.
Chennai, IndiaAmudha, who goes by only her first name, sells flowers for a living in Chennai, one of India’s largest cities. She used to spend 15 percent of her profits buying plastic shopping bags for her sales. Now she saves that expense and wraps her customers’ flowers in the broad leaves plucked from a tree on the sidewalk.
This small windfall‒she used to spend 60 rupees (0.84 USD) a day on bags‒came about at the beginning of this year, when the state of Tamil Nadu in the southernmost part of India banned 14 types of plastic, including the diaphanous bags Amudha used to buy.
The ban in Tamil Nadu, home to nearly 68 million people, is part of an ambitious national campaign
