India flooded by plastic waste again, so to speak (2,2,4)
I believe the answer is:
as it were
'so to speak' is the definition.
(synonyms)
'india flooded by plastic waste again' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'india' could be 'i' (phonetic alphabet: alpha, bravo, charlie etc.) and 'i' is present in the answer.
an anagram of 'waste' is 'astwe' which is within the remaining letters.
'again' could be 're' and 're' is located in the answer.
This accounts for all the letters.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for as it were that I've seen before include "Seemingly" , "In a manner of speaking" , "you may say" , "Just like if really so" , "you might say" .)