Scrap dealers under the aegis of the Kerala Scrap Merchants Association (KSMA) will go on a token strike on Wednesday and Thursday in protest against the alleged neglect of the sector by State and Central governments.
All scrap outlets in the State will remain closed for 48 hours, while the dealers will stage a sit-in in front of the Secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram. A march to the GST office and a ‘scrap-filling’ protest will be held.
KSMA district president P.P. Mehaboob told reporters here on Tuesday that scrap dealers had played a major role in effective waste management in the State for decades, but had never been recognised by the governments or the society. “After the GST was implemented, the scrap sector, comprising around 1.5 lakh ragpickers, 50,000 dealers and one lakh labourers, has been in crisis,” he said.
Though the tax for plastic waste was reduced from 18% to 5%, recyclers have to pay 18% as GST. As a result, recyclable waste cannot be sent to them. Ragpickers do not collect plastic waste from roadsides now, resulting in huge waste dumps. “Water in bottles have a tax of only 2%. But a 5% tax is applied on empty bottles,” said Mr. Mehaboob.
Besides, import of waste from other countries has adversely affected the collection and movement of recyclable waste inside the country. “We pick up waste from drains, clean and recycle it. But the meagre profit is being stolen by the governments in the form of tax. We cannot survive in this manner,” he added.
The association wants the government to exclude all kinds of waste from the purview of GST, encourage the plastic recycling sector and make licensing for scrap dealership transparent.