THE government has renewed the ban on the use of polythene and polypropylene shopping bags in super stores beginning on October 1. After two decades, the law was revisited for a nationwide enforcement beginning on November 1. It was not the use but its indiscriminate disposal that prompted the ban on the production, sales and use of polythene bag in 2002. Indiscriminate disposal was a concern because polythene does not decompose in the environment even in hundred years. Consequently, discarded polythene bags piles up on the river bed, in the canals and under the soil.
Despite the adoption of the law, the production, sales, use and uncontrolled disposal of polythene bags were business as usual in the public domain. Law banning the use of polythene bag did not yield intended results for the following reasons 鈥� polythene bag being in public demand; insouciance about the enforcement of the law; no alternatives to polythene bags; no plastic waste recycling industry; and the absence of long-term national plan to modernise waste management.
Since the prohibition in 2002, domestic production, sales, public use and haphazard disposal of different types of plastic products, including polythene bags, increased. The average per capita plastic waste generation increased from three kilograms a year in 2005 to nine kilograms a year in 2020. In Dhaka, plastic waste generation increased from 9.2 kilograms a year in 2005 to 22.25 kilograms a year in 2020. In the European Union, the per capita plastic waste generation was听36.1 kilograms in 2021. About 14.7 kilograms plastic wastes a person were recycled. Plastic waste that does not get recycled either goes to landfills or incinerators or ends up uncollected in nature, including beaches, forests, rivers and seas.
Despite being one of the lowest producers of plastic wastes, Bangladesh is viewed as one of the top countries polluted with plastic wastes because of the weak waste management. About 25 per cent of plastic waste is recycled in Bangladesh. It means, more than 600,000 tonnes of plastic waste is left in the environment every year.
Polythene bags are not the only culprit polluting the environment. Because of changes in the way of life, different kinds of plastics such as medicine foils, food wrappers, baby diapers, vehicle window panes and wind shields, plastics used in car dash boards, styrofoam utensils, X-ray sheets, synthetic ropes, synthetic sheets, etc joins the waste stream every day. Many of the plastic products/packaging materials have a single use commonly called single-use plastic.
Among the plastic wastes, polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, bottles have a higher recycling percentage because of the commercial value. A PET bottle has three parts 鈥� the bottle, the wrapper and the cap. The bottle and the cap have recycle value and are used to produce plastic flex for reuse in the plastic product manufacturing industry. Wrappers of PET bottles do not have recycle value. Recyclers dispose of wrappers either by crude burning or dumping into the environment. But the wrapper can be easily made biodegradable.
With changes in way of life, single-use plastic products/packaging materials have ultimately become essential commodities in daily household use. Single-use plastics do not have recycling or upcycling value and waste pickers do not collect them 鈥� diapers, cotton buds, styrofoam utensil, medicine foils etc for example 鈥� for resale. Simply asking people to stop using the commodities is unlikely to yield any results unless there are alternatives at affordable prices.
The government in 2021 drew up a three-year plan to 鈥榮top鈥� the use single-use plastic in 40 upazilas of 12 districts, identified as exposed coast. The scheme included all types of one-time use utensils, straw, styrofoam packaging materials, cigarette filters, cotton buds, surgical gloves and masks and non-recyclable/non-biodegradable items with multilayer packaging. The project completed in December 2023. The outcome of the project is unknown.
The scheme to 鈥榮top鈥� the use of such items under the project was too ambitious. The brighter side is that ambition makes progress happen if it is advanced idealistically. Biodegradable alternatives to single-use plastics are yet to be introduced in the market. It would be pragmatic and effective to focus on the modernisation of waste management.
Waste management, let alone the management of plastic waste, has three principal components 鈥� the environmental education of waste producers, which should begin in primary schools and continue through universities; the management of wastes which is commonly called waste management; and waste engineering, which is about the use of technology in waste management. Constant interactive interface of the three components with long-term detailed work plans can build a robust waste management regime over the years through painstaking efforts.
In this case, local government organisations from city corporations down to union councils have a role in the implementation of waste management schemes. There is no quick fix in waste management. The need for waste management should be seen ahead of time. Both the local government institutions and the government鈥檚 nodal agency on environment must work in a concerted manner.
Local government institutions such as the city corporations do not have appropriate waste management organisations. Local government organisations such as municipal corporations do not have waste management organization. The conservancy departments in the institutions are too weak to undertake the management of waste in a modern context. Conservancy departments do not exist in local government institutions such as upazila and union councils. A long-term approach with specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time bound plans together with key performance indicators on the implementation of the plan is essential.
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Mohammad Abdur Razzak ([email protected]), a retired commodore of the Bangladesh navy, is a former chief waste management officer at the Dhaka North City Corporation.
