What became of Sindh’s plastic bag ban?

It was only last year that the Sindh government announced with much fanfare its plan to end the use of non-biodegradable plastic bags. Several months on, however, it seems that campaign has silently fizzled out with polythene bags once again common in most shops across the province. Although Sindh officials insist that the ban is still in effect, many shop owners and traders beg to differ.

“The campaign against non-degradable bags was merely confined to the media,” said Gul Khan, who runs a grocery store in Karachi’s Defence Housing Authority. “Why else would shopkeepers keep using them with no fear?” According to Gul, it was futile trying to impose a ban on plastic bags by focusing on traders like him alone.

“Since childhood, I have been hearing that polythene bags pose a great threat to the environment,” he said. But no one makes any serious effort to ban them. Nothing will happen until the government shuts down the factories that manufacture such bags.

” The Sindh government promulgated the Sindh Environment Protection (SEP) Act in 2014, but six years on, its implementation remains a thorny issue. Section 14(3) of the law explicitly outlaws the manufacture and use of non-biodegradable plastic. “No person shall import, manufacture, stockpile, trade, supply, distribute or sell any scheduled plastic product which is non-degradable and cannot be broken down by the natural process,” it states.

Even so, shopkeepers and traders say that efforts to impose these restrictions have only been cosmetic at best. When the campaign against plastic bags was launched in October last year, the Sindh government announced that it had convinced manufacturers to produce environment-friendly biodegradable bags. As the media carried awareness messages urging consumers to switch to reusable or environment-friendly bags, Sindh officials warned that they would impose fines on violators across the province.

“Not only will penalties be imposed, but factories found violating the ban will also be sealed. We have given two months to wholesalers, retailers and manufactures to dispose of or end the stock of banned plastic bags,” Sindh government Spokesman Barrister Murtaza Wahab warned at the time. This drive, according to traders and shopkeepers, fizzled out in just a couple of months. But even when it was supposedly in full swing, they said the ban was only ‘partially enforced’.

“The fruit and vegetable vendors, bakeries, milk shops and grocery stores that adopted biodegradable bags only did so for a few weeks,” said Rahim Khan, who runs a naan shop in Akhtar Colony. “It was apparent very soon that the environmentfriendly bags were eating up some of our profits.” According to Rahim, the new bags cost twice as much as the plastic ones commonly used.

“They also emitted a strange stench that many found off-putting,” he said. “In just a few days, most shop owners switched back to polythene bags.” When contacted, Sindh Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa) Director-General Naeem Mughal said the ban was still in place and violators were being dealt with.

“We have issued licenses to a few companies that manufacture and sell environment-friendly bags,” he said. “The only plastic bags allowed are those that are made of biodegradable material and are more than 30 microns thick with dimensions greater than 10 by 14 inches.” He also claimed that several shops in Karachi and other areas of the province were sealed and faced a fine for violating the government orders.

“We have selected Sukkur as a model district. Now, there is not a single wholesaler who is involved in the business of non-biodegradable plastics,” Mughal said.