India starts small with ban on some single-use plastics

Workers of a helmet store paste degradable plastic substitute material on a glass in Hyderabad (Mahesh Kumar A/AP)

India banned some single-use or disposable plastic products on Friday, as part of a federal plan to phase it out in a country of nearly 1.4 billion people.

For the first stage, it has identified 19 plastic items that are not very useful but have a high potential to become litter and makes it illegal to produce, import, stock, distribute or sell them.