Distressing link between unsafe water & plastic pollution: Explained

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Picture Courtesy: Down to Earth

Context:

India’s urban drinking water systems, even in top-ranked “clean” cities, are increasingly failing to ensure safe and reliable supply.

Background of the issue:

• Urban water insecurity and declining public trust: India’s water crisis has gradually shifted from scarcity alone to concerns over quality and reliability, especially in urban areas. Rapid urbanisation, ageing pipelines, contamination from sewage leakage, and intermittent supply have weakened public confidence in municipal drinking water. As cities struggle to ensure safe tap water, households increasingly rely on packaged drinking water as a private substitute for a public service.
• Expansion of the bottled water economy: The growth of the bottled water market reflects both rising incomes and declining faith in public infrastructure. What began as an emergency or occasional option has become a daily necessity for many urban residents. This shift has significantly increased the use of single-use PET bottles, linking water insecurity directly to the surge in plastic waste generation.
• Plastic waste and the informal recycling structure: India’s waste management system has historically evolved around an informal circular economy, where waste pickers collect, segregate and sell recyclable materials. Their labour has enabled relatively high recovery rates for plastics despite weak formal infrastructure. However, this system remains unrecognised in policy design, with workers lacking social security, safety measures and stable incomes.
• Modernisation without social integration: Recent urban reforms emphasising mechanisation, privatisation and centralised waste collection aim to improve efficiency and city cleanliness. While these initiatives enhance visible sanitation outcomes, they often reduce access to recyclables for waste pickers, disrupting their livelihoods. The transition reflects a policy focus on infrastructure and aesthetics rather than inclusive sustainability.
• Incomplete wastewater and sanitation systems: Parallel to the solid waste challenge is a growing urban wastewater crisis. Rapid population growth has outpaced sewage network expansion and treatment capacity. A significant share of untreated or partially treated wastewater flows back into rivers and groundwater, contributing to water contamination and reinforcing the cycle of unsafe drinking water.

Importance of the water – waste livelihood link:

Public health at risk: Declining trust in municipal water supply is pushing urban households toward bottled alternatives, which studies have found to contain micro and nano-plastics, even as contaminated public sources continue to trigger periodic outbreaks of waterborne diseases in cities.

Growing plastic burden: This rising dependence on packaged water is intensifying plastic consumption, contributing to India’s 9.3 million tonnes of annual plastic waste, of which PET bottles account for nearly 13%, while only about 81% is effectively collected, leaving the remainder to pollute rivers, soil and groundwater.

Threat to water security: The environmental leakage is compounded by the wastewater crisis, as urban India generates nearly 48,000 MLD of sewage but treats only around 56%, allowing untreated effluents to contaminate surface and groundwater and further reinforce the cycle of unsafe drinking water.

Livelihood and inclusion challenges: Within this cycle, informal waste pickers play a critical role by recovering nearly 40% of urban recyclables, yet modernised waste systems have reduced their earnings by 50–70%, as seen in Surat, exposing the social costs of infrastructure-led cleanliness reforms.

Invisible and hazardous sanitation work: At the same time, wastewater management depends heavily on informal sewer and septic workers, and recurring fatalities during manual cleaning operations highlight the persistent gap between sustainability ambitions and worker safety and dignity.

Credibility of urban governance: These structural weaknesses become more visible when cities that rank high in cleanliness indices, such as Indore, continue to face concerns over water quality, revealing a mismatch between visible sanitation achievements and core service delivery outcomes.

Risks to circular economy:  Excluding informal workers from formal systems ultimately weakens material recovery efficiency, undermines plastic reduction efforts and threatens India’s progress toward SDG 6 (Clean Water), SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities) and SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption).

Barriers in breaking the water – plastic labour cycle:

• Fragmented urban governance: Water supply, solid waste management and wastewater treatment are handled by separate agencies, leading to weak coordination and a policy approach that addresses symptoms in isolation rather than the full urban resource cycle.
• Inadequate water and sewage infrastructure: Rapid urbanisation has outpaced infrastructure expansion, resulting in unreliable drinking water supply and a wastewater system where nearly 48,000 MLD of sewage is generated but only about 56% is effectively treated, allowing contamination of natural water sources.
• Persistent plastic dependence: Unsafe and intermittent public water supply continues to drive reliance on bottled water, adding to the 9.3 million tonnes of annual plastic waste, with significant leakage into the environment due to gaps in collection and processing.
• Informalisation and livelihood disruption: Although informal waste pickers recover nearly 40% of recyclables, modernised and privatised waste systems often restrict their access to waste, leading to income losses of 50–70% in some cities and increasing livelihood insecurity.

Way Forward:

Restoring trust in public drinking water: Cities must prioritise reliable and safe municipal supply through real-time quality monitoring, pipeline upgrades and public refill infrastructure. Singapore’s public water system with advanced treatment, continuous monitoring and island-wide drinking fountains has ensured high public trust, significantly reducing dependence on bottled water.

Optimising wastewater treatment: India needs to move beyond the current ~56% effective sewage treatment by investing in decentralised plants, reuse systems and strict compliance. Israel treats and reuses nearly 85–90% of its wastewater, mainly for agriculture, demonstrating how wastewater can become a resource rather than a pollutant.

Cutting plastic at source through economic instruments: Reducing PET bottle waste requires deposit - refund systems and strong producer accountability. Germany’s Pfand system (deposit-return for bottles) has achieved over 90% recovery rates, drastically minimising plastic leakage into the environment.

Integrating informal waste workers into formal systems: Formal recognition, cooperatives and contractual roles can protect livelihoods while improving efficiency. Brazil’s waste picker cooperatives (catadores) are integrated into municipal waste systems, providing stable incomes, social protection and higher recycling rates.

Conclusion:
True sustainability requires recognising the full cycle of water, waste and labour. Without systemic integration and social protection for informal workers, environmental progress will remain superficial and inequitable.

Source: Down to Earth