Airports, railway stations, malls and fast food outlets have to take an active role in plastic waste management, the state environment department has decided.

The department has asked all municipalities and municipal corporations to issue directives to malls, airports, railway stations and fast food centres to make arrangements for delivery of their plastic waste to authorised recycling units within August 31.

The environment watchdog has also asked the civic bodies to “explore the feasibility of establishing plastic waste recycling units within their municipal areas”. The department also sent a directive to the Indian Plastic Federation to provide “infrastructural support” for setting up such plants.

“Apart from carrybags, these places use plastic as wrapping material, thus generating huge quantities of plastic waste. The civic bodies should try to set up recycling units by December so that the waste coming from such places can be utilised,” said M.L. Meena, the principal secretary of the environment department and chairman of the state plastic management committee.

“A number of recycling units have reportedly closed down as they do not have enough waste to process, but plastic waste is found scattered everywhere” said Biswajit Mukherjee, the chief law officer of the department.

“We discussed the matter with the state government and are prepared to help out the municipalities in setting up recycling units,” said R.A. Lohia, the chairman of the environment committee of the Indian Plastic Federation.

There are about 200 such units in Calcutta and around 400 across the state, many of which had closed down due to lack of adequate waste.