Plastic future

It is a sad reality that people do not care enough about the effect the use of polythene bags has on the environment. The plastic bags we use daily are non-biodegradable and are one of the biggest reasons for the build-up of trash in landfills and everywhere around us. We tend to believe that it is not our problem if we will not live to see the effects our careless attitudes towards this build-up of trash will cause, yet we conveniently forget the fact that the effects of this are already visible and will only continue to snowball further if we do not take steps to combat this. In Pakistan there is no proper management for recycling plastics nor does garbage collection work properly to remove them from wherever they thrown. In some areas of the country section 144 of the CrPC has been repeatedly imposed in order to stop the use of such harmful plastics, but that has failed to work as intended up until now.

In my home town of Swabi, I recall that last month the district administration launched a drive, wherein tons of polythene bags were seized from shopkeeper and the violators were sued legally. Why has the state failed to turn its attention to the manufacturers instead who are truly responsible? If the government really wants to abolish these non-biodegradable bags then why has a proper bill from the assembly not been adopted as of yet? We should not ignore the side effects of such environmental pollution. As responsible citizens we should avoid using them and prefer other alternatives like cloth bags. The government should also impose a complete ban on its use and all manufacturing factories must be warned to stop their production. The manufacturing factories should be allotted the materials to make biodegradable bags and then these should be sold to the shopkeepers cheaply to try and overcome this serious issue. The concerned departments should also play a pivotal role in this regard to help clean up the plastics dumped everywhere.

Numan Bacha

Swabi