Daily Times

Finally it is great that people are getting on board to save the earth and looking for cloth or paper bags as an alternative to plastic bags, but the true help for keeping environment clean and green is that the quarters concerned must make those things for free and don’t think about profit.

Disposable or alternative bags are easy way to help the environment but the problem is the additional cost charged from the people; we need something without someone overcharging for the product.

It has been learnt that in markets environment friendly bag is being sold for Rs 30, as shopkeepers say that “we are buying it in Rs 28”. During a whole day, shopkeepers associated with uniform shop said, “Just two costumers purchased disposable bag while most of others are demanding plastic bags, which are also available free of cost on our shop”.

Retailers are aware that any manufacturer, importer or wholesaler found supplying the polythene bags would be fined Rs 50,000 and habitual offenders may have to pay up to Rs 500,000. Similarly, any shopkeeper or hawker found violating the regulation would be fined Rs 10,000 for the first offense. But it was found that only on medical stores free of cost paper bags are being used for medicines.

In recent past the government has prohibited usage of single-use plastic bags in Islamabad and announced to draft a statutory notification (SRO) under the Pakistan Environmental Protection Act 1997 to provide legal support to the proposed action. As much as 5000 cotton bags have also been produced for distribution among the federal government employees. It was also announced that these bags would also be distributed free of cost in Friday and Sunday bazaars along with other markets. But so far these bags could not be distributed, particularly in suburban areas of the Federal Capital where most of the salespersons particularly working on vegetable and fruit shops are demanding from costumers to come with their own cloth bag.

It has also been learnt that plastic bags are easily available in the markets despite that the government has given a one-month deadline to the manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers to finish their stock before August 14 and only a limited number of flat plastic bags allowed to produce for industrial or municipal packaging, and hospital waste.

While consumers are still waiting for free of cost alternative bags or paper bags. Most of them were opined that making free of cost biodegradable bags or setting price same as proper bag is the solution of problems. They demanded that plastic must also be banned for the companies selling their products in. They must also look for another option.

Officials associates with the environment departments were of the view that people need to change bad habits saying that “why not just get a reusable bag and not throw it out ?cheap one item payment and no pollution”

The term ‘plastic’, first used in the trade journal Plastics in 1925, comes from the Greek word plastikos, which means “capable of being shaped or moulded” and plastos meaning “moulded”. In early 2006 the Sindh government imposed a ban on the manufacturing, sale and use of polythene bags of less than 30 microns’ thickness.

This move however had not quelled the concerns of environmentalists and citizens as an ensuing crackdown was not sufficient in ensuring that the ban was enforced.