Beyond The Bin: Measurement, Precaution And Attribution In India’s Regulation Of Microplastic Pollution
Sonawane Jayesh Raju, LLM, National Law University, Jodhpur
ABSTRACT
Indian environmental law today contains a statutory definition of microplastics, a binding prohibition on plastic microbeads in cosmetic formulations, and an elaborate producer-responsibility regime for plastic packaging. It nevertheless remains incapable of establishing, in a form a court or an adjudicating officer could act upon, how much microplastic is present in an Indian river. This project treats that incapacity as a legal defect rather than a scientific one. Working principally from material filed before the National Green Tribunal between 2022 and 2026, it argues that three deficiencies operate together to sustain a regulatory stalemate: an unfilled measurement vacuum, an inverted use of the precautionary principle, and the unavailability of attribution for diffuse releases. Comparison with the European Union shows that microplastic regulation has been built elsewhere in three legal grammars Indian law has scarcely used. The study proposes a sequenced architecture beginning with method-setting rather than limit- setting, each step located within a statutory power India already possesses.
