The drive to ban the use of polythene bags will be intensified – Bangladesh Home Ministry
Nasir-ud-Daula, Additional Secretary of the Home Ministry, stated that efforts to ban polythene shopping bags will be escalated. Initially, the production of polythene shopping bags used in super shops will be stopped.
Nasir-ud-Daula told reporters after a view-sharing meeting at the Home Ministry’s conference room on January 13. The meeting aimed to ban the production and use of polythene shopping bags in the country.
Representatives from the Home Ministry, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change of Bangladesh and several plastic industry associations of the country, along with law enforcement officials of the ministry, attended the meeting.
At the meeting’s conclusion, Nasir-up-Daula stated that they discussed strategies to enforce the ban on polythene shopping bags and ways to enhance the campaign.
The Bangladesh government, along with the public and stakeholders, must work together to stop polythene use. He asked for everyone’s cooperation.
The Additional Secretary announced that production of polythene shopping bags in supermarkets will be halted.
“Then the ban on the use of polythene shopping bags used in the market will be implemented. The use of other polythene products will also be phased out.”
Mr. Tapan Kumar Biswas, Additional Secretary (Environmental Pollution Control) of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MOEFCC), Bangladesh, said that alternatives to polythene are being sought.
The Ministry of Textiles and Jute of Bangladesh has already taken initiatives to produce various eco-friendly shopping bags.
Apart from this, various eco-friendly shopping bags are also being produced privately. He said that the producers, exporters and business representatives of polythene bags have promised to follow the government’s instructions. The government has assured cooperation.
It is worth noting that polythene or polypropylene bags were banned in supermarkets from October 1. And a campaign to stop the use of polythene bags has been going on across the country since November 1.
The government has decided to enforce rules to stop the production, storage, transportation, marketing, and use of banned polythene and polypropylene shopping bags.
Bangladesh banned the production, marketing and use of toxic polythene by a law on March 1, 2002.
Polythene production and use in the country have increased over the past two decades. After that, the government made another law in 2010, but this law also did not work in practice.
