Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The practice of burning plastic bags on street sides at dumpsites produces dioxins and furans responsible for producing serious diseases and dangerous for human health.

Plastic bags take much longer to degrade than paper bags. Under the best circumstances, high density polyethylene will take more than 20 years to degrade. The Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency (Pak-EPA) had conducted a national survey, which revealed that 55 billion plastic shopping bags were being used each year in the country. The use of plastic bags is on the rise at the rate of 15% per annum. There are about 8,021 production units in the country with average production capacity of 250-500 kg per day and a majority of them are cottage industry. Approximately, 160,000 people are directly, and 600,000 people are indirectly dependent on this industry.

Apart from dangerous to human being, used plastic shoppers are notorious for choking sewer, open drainage system, spoiling sanitation and creating an overall unaesthetic view of environment. The manufacturers of plastic bags oppose the ban on plastic bags, arguing that employment of thousands of persons depends upon such cottage industries, which manufacture polyethylene bags. The ban will render many people jobless.

Officials in the Ministry for Climate Change told Daily Times that Pak-EPA had examined that different countries were addressing the issues in different ways like a complete ban on manufacturing and use of plastic bags, increasing price by levy of additional taxes and promoting the use of paper and cotton bags.

It has been analysed that banning the use of plastic bags across the board would not be a viable solution as they have become part of our daily life. It would be difficult to get such an order implemented. The officials said that the government had the example of Balochistan province, where an ordinance to ban all kind of plastic bags was promulgated but could not be implemented due to “non-cooperation” of manufacturers and consumers.

The solution to control plastic bags issue could be tackled through combination of several measures like banning manufacturing, selling and usage of non-degradable plastic bags in the country, increasing thickness of degradable bags to 30 microns, promoting use of cotton bags through an awareness campaign, rationalising tariff in favour of manufacturing of paper bags and concession on import of automatic paper bag machinery.

Degradable plastic bags are classified into the several categories like, oxy-degradable, photo-degradable and bio-degradable.

Out of all the above three types, oxy-degradable is the best option as these bags get disintegrated in presence of oxygen, whether through atmosphere or from water. In other words, these bags get destroyed in the presence of air and water.

Actions taken by Pak-EPA: The Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency (Pak-EPA), with the approval of the Ministry of Climate Change and after vetting by Ministry of Law and Justice notified ‘Prohibition of Non-degradable Plastic Products (manufacture, import, sale and usage) Regulation, 2013, which prohibits the usage of plastic products in the limit of Islamabad Capital Territory, effective from April 1, 2013 with amendment in September 2015.

Under the said regulations no person shall import, manufacture, stockpile, trade, supply, distribute, sell or use any scheduled plastic product which is non-degradable. The regulation also provide that no pro-degradant additive shall be sold, distributed or imported by any company or manufacturer of scheduled plastic product without registration with Pak-EPA.

Officials claim that despite legislation, existing laws, the use of plastic bags are on rise, which is still a challenge for environment and also for human beings.

Published in Daily Times, January 28^th 2018.