Despite ban, single-use plastic still available in Amritsar

Amritsar, September 10

Forty days after the ban, single-use plastic is still available everywhere in the city. Plastic bags are easily available in every market. Municipal Corporation officials claimed that they have issued more than 500 challans in the city to curb the use of plastic bags.

However, there is some impact on brand showrooms and shopping centres which are avoiding polythene bags and providing recyclable bags. But multinational and corporate companies also use single-use plastic for packaging their products.

“The government imposed a ban on single-use plastic on July 1. The local authorities were active for the first two weeks of the month, but after the end of July’s third week, the fight against plastic went into an ineffective mode. The shopkeepers started denying that they were providing plastic bags just for fear of being challaned. Now things have started getting normalised, plastic bags are available again in the market,” said Sandip Singh, an environment activist.

“The government fails to break supply line. The manufacturing of plastic bags should be stopped. Alternative packing material should be provided to make the ban successful. The SUP is now available in the market and no one is willing to shift to an alternative. When the bags would be not available then a customer would visit the market with his own bag. Issuing challans to shopkeepers would not help much,” said, Jagjit Singh, a shopkeeper at Vallah.