Better late than never

A Pakistani on an average uses 300 plastic bags a year, according to official estimates. And this means that the whole of our 220 million-strong nation uses something around 66 billion such supposedly disposable bags per year. Environmentalists say that a plastic bag takes 400 to 1,000 years to degenerate, and therefore, remains a part of our environment in one form or the other. No wonder then that these everlasting bags are found littered all over the place — flying in the air, choking drains, hanging by poles and stuck in tree twigs. And those landing in water channels finally end up in the sea in the form of huge marine debris.

While plastic pollution and its negative effects on the overall environment has, for years, been a subject of discussion at official policy platforms as well as seminars and conferences organised by private concerns and NGOs, the Government of Sindh has turned out to be the first to have taken a practical step towards tackling this menace. The provincial government has decided to ensure a “complete ban on the sale, manufacturing and use of plastic bags in Sindh” that had been announced by the provincial environment department on March 2018. There have been bans earlier — in Sindh and other provinces too — but they have imposed partial restrictions only, like on the type of plastic material used, thickness of bags, etc.

The ban is to take effect from October 1 i.e. in about 50 days from now. In the meantime, the provincial government plans to launch an awareness campaign to prepare people to ditch plastic bags and revert to the use of paper and cloth bags that remind us of the good old times of our grannies. Alongside that the government must ensure that as announced, violators of the ban do face legal action. People must understand that the accumulation of plastic waste poses grave threats to the well-being of breathing beings.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 11^th, 2019.

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