Now, carry bags made of corn starch to beat plastic pollution

Tribune News Service

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Ludhiana, May 1

To beat the menace of plastic pollution, biodegradable carry bags have been launched in the district for the first time. These were earlier launched for carrying 'parshad' at Harmandar Sahib last month.

Speaking about the initiative, Ravdeep Singh, SDO, Punjab Pollution Control Board, said those carry bags were manufactured by four companies in Maharashtra, Chennai and other cities. These are not made of plastic, but of corn starch, which is biodegradable and get decomposed within a year after these are disposed of. So, they persuaded a wholesaler who bought around 2 quintals of these carry bags. As of now, the cost of these carry bags is more than the regular carry bags. But if these become popular, those companies can launch themselves here and then their cost would become equivalent to the regular plastic carry bags.

Even though there has been a complete ban on carry bags for the past couple of years, it was ineffective because there was no alternative to the plastic carry bags. Singh said they had tried to bring an alternative with this initiative. This is also in line with 'Beat plastic pollution', the theme of the World Environment Day this year. Executive Engineer ML Chauhan from the board launched these bags here. More than 14 shopkeepers purchased these carry bags today.