Facilitate smooth transition from plastics to compostable bags: NGO to government

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, April 25

Action Group Against Plastic Pollution (AGAPP), an NGO-based in Jalandhar, has urged the government to facilitate a smooth transition from plastics to compostable bags by all users in the state.

Navneet Bhullar, an activist with the group, said: “We are urging the state government to raise awareness to increase the demand for such bags, which are manufactured from starch. The state has abundant amount of starch to start its manufacturing plant. We have seen that local shopkeepers in Jalandhar are unaware of already existing availability of these bags in the market.”

Bhullar said: “It is easy to differentiate genuine compostable bag from the counterfeit. The latter will not fully dissolve in diethyl chlorine, which the civic body authorities can be trained to test. Compostable plastic bags are fully compostable under industrial compostable conditions.”

She said: “Plastic bags cannot be banned till a feasible practical alternative is available as a substitute. Jute and paper promoted by the Punjab Municipal Infrastructure Development Company are not a practical alternative.”

The NGO estimates that 1,000 tonnes of plastic bags are being used daily in Punjab. “We cannot be complacent after microplastics have invaded our food chain and lakhs of plastic bags are used rampantly, polluting arable land and water bodies. By 2050, an estimate determines that there may be more plastic than fish in the oceans.”

AGAPP members said they mourned on the Earth Day, adding that: “We have been helplessly watching our land and water getting polluted by plastic waste. But, the NGO is liaising with schools across the state to write emails to the CM, PPCB, CPCB and the Directorate of Environment in the next seven days as a part of the AGAPP’s Earth Day-2021 campaign.”

Members of the NGO are peeved over the fact that the state government had in 2016 amended the Punjab Plastic Carry Bags Control Act, 2005, to prohibit manufacturing, stocking, distribution, recycling, sale or use of plastic carry bags and containers made of virgin or recycled plastic and plastic items having one time use such as disposable plastic cups, spoons, forks, and straws. However, the ban had never been enforced except for a few weeks’ in 2016, they stressed.

Bhullar said: “Since December 2020, we have been writing to the Punjab CM, Local Bodies’ Minister, Punjab Pollution Control Board, Central Pollution Control Board as well as the Directorate of Environment and Climate Change, Punjab, to ensure a complete ban on plastics.”

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