The law on plastic waste management is to be implemented to protect the environment – Syed Rizwana Hasan

Syeda Rizwana Hasan, the head of Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA), has called for the creation and enforcement of laws regarding plastic waste management.

She said, “In Bangladesh, the Ministry of Forest, Environment and Climate Change (MoFECC), Bangladesh, has a policy on plastic, but the Ministry of Industry, Bangladesh, is walking on a completely different path.

They are doing a different policy. Environmental management is mentioned in that policy, but no specific definition is available until 2023.

There are many institutions and laws in Bangladesh, but there is no separate law on plastic waste management. Different countries are creating specific laws for managing plastic waste, and they are largely assigning responsibility for managing plastic waste to the producers. Although this approach is talked about in Bangladesh, there is no legal implementation.

She said this at a discussion meeting on ‘Plastic and Environment’ held at the BRAC Center in Mohakhali, Dhaka on February 20, 2024.

Syeda Rizwana Hasan said, ‘One more model the world is working on and getting success is to change the behavior of consumers.’

“And plastic producers also have to share in this responsibility to change behavior equally. Producers are responsible for raising awareness and promoting the idea of using plastic in different ways,” she added.

The meeting was organized by the Bangladesh Sustainability Alliance (BSA), made up of non-governmental development organization BRAC and local and multinational companies.

In the event, Alliance members discussed the disadvantages of using single-use plastic, multi-layer or multi-step plastic, alternative use of plastic. Besides, how to reduce the use of plastic without increasing the cost of the product is also discussed.

Among the members of the alliance are BRAC, PRAN-RFL, Standard Chartered Banglades, Marico Bangladesh, Unilever Bangladesh, PepsiCo, Intercontinental and several other companies.