Traders in recycled plastics up in arms against GST

Joint secretary of the association M Annamalai said that there are close to 5,000 used plas

tic collection godowns that buy scrap from rag pickers and from people selling their used plastic articles.

They supply used plastics to reprocessing outlets at Kuniyamuthur, Podanur, Vellalore, Kurichi, Chettipalayam, Kurichi Pirivu and Ganapathy in the city. “Seventy per cent of those directly and indirectly employed in the sector are women,” he said. Stating that 18 per cent tax under GST has been slapped on each of the three stages of the cycle, he claimed that this has reflected on the price of plastic granules they make, not far cheaper than virgin plastic.

 “Plastic manufacturers prefer virgin plastic to our granules. To stay competitive we are forced to pay less to buy the plastic wastes and this affects rag pickers and which, in turn, will affect ‘Clean India’ movement,” he added. Demonstrators said that the representatives of their State body had submitted a petition seeking zero per cent GST on plastic scrap and reprocessing to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and the Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Nirmala Sitharaman during their visit to Chennai last week. They added that they would be forced to close down their units if they were not exempted from GST.