Making City Beautiful plastic-free a far cry

Mohit Khanna

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 15

With merely one company in the country manufacturing biodegradable polythene bags and selling A-4 size for Rs 2.5 per piece, the efforts of making City Beautiful plastic-free appears to be a far cry.

According to Rhythm Aggarwal, Assistant Environmental Engineer with the Chandigarh Pollution Control Committee (CPCC), so far, Ahmedabad-based Greendiamz Biotech Ltd is manufacturing compostable polythene bags and supplying it through HP Green Solutions.

She claims that regular raids were conducted to keep a tab on the sale of polythene bags. However, the visit to the Sector 26 wholesale vegetable market presents a different story.

Vegetable vendors complain that the high price and lack of strength makes these bags completely unviable. They further said instead of forcing vendors to buy compostable bags, the department should provide an affordable and effective alternative.

Suraj, a vegetable vendor, who was carrying bottle gourd, cucumber and lady finger in a polythene bag in the Sector 26 market, said the vegetable business was thriving on polythene bags. “We are with the department and also want to rid of polythene bags, but the department should suggest a viable alternative. The pollution department stress on using paper bags and bags made of cloth. Practically, it is nearly impossible to carry everything in a bag made of cloth or paper,” said Suraj.

Chanderkant, who was selling mangoes in the Sector 26 market, said “These compostable bags are nothing but showpiece and fail to carry much weight. Moreover, no one agree to pay extra for bags.” Compostable bags were distributed by the Chandigarh Beopar Mandal on World Environment Day on June 5. However, soon after the distribution, these bags were soon vanished from the market.

Tersem Singh said “Compostable polythene bags are expensive. The microns of the bags should be increased so that it should carry reasonable weight. Unless a viable alternative will not be provided, such bans (plastic ban) would continue to be violated.

Polythene carry bags were banned in 2008 and the National Green Tribunal (NGT) has directed that whoever will be caught using them will be fined Rs 5,000 from January, 2016. In order to counter polythene bags, compostable bags, made primarily of corn starch, were introduced.

Rhythm Aggarwal said non-woven bags had been also banned by the department. She said, “People take non-woven bags as bag made of cloth. These bags look like cloth bags but 99 per cent of what it consists is polypropylene, a kind of plastic which is as harmful as polythene bags.”

Aggarwal said around 1,000 kg of polythene was seized by the Department of Food and Supplies and Consumer Affairs in Chandigarh in 2016 and 2017. She said a total of 55 persons were challaned and fined Rs 5,000 and 607 persons were challaned and fined Rs 500 for plastic ban violation. She said from January 1 to Mary 31, the Food and Supplies Department challaned 135 people for plastic ban violation.