Practical solutions to address plastic waste stressed

Islamabad : Minister of State for Climate Change Zartaj Gul on Wednesday stressed the need for a public-private partnership on practical solutions to address increasing plastic waste.

She stated that at the launch of the research study (baseline scoping study) for plastic waste management, conducted by WWF-Pakistan with the support of The Coca-Cola Foundation. Minister of State for Climate Change Zartaj Gul was the guest of honour on this occasion.

Zartaj Gul appreciated the study but said that more important is to invest in practical solutions such as recycling plants. She also briefed the participants about the ongoing government initiatives on climate change and gave credit to Prime Minister Imran Khan’s vision for the government’s special focus on climate change despite having to cope with economic and political challenges. Talking about the Clean and Green Pakistan initiative, she said that the government is already giving attention to Green Pakistan adding that the future focus would be the ‘Clean Pakistan’ movement.

This study maps out Pakistan’s current plastic waste generation and management supply chain besides identifying current perceptions and opinions of key stakeholders with regards to plastic waste generation, segregation, collection, and disposal. These include the informal sector comprising scavengers, junk dealers, and recyclers; the formal waste collectors such as public and private waste management companies; the commercial sector comprising of hotels, educational institutes, restaurants; and lastly household consumers of PET bottles.

Data was collected through interviews and survey questionnaires to analyse PET consumption, collection, disposal and recycling patterns in 10 selected cities across Pakistan. These included Lahore, Karachi, Islamabad, Peshawar, Gilgit, Murree, Rahimyar Khan, Multan, Gujranwala and Faisalabad. The study encourages PET bottles recycling as an effective solution to tackling Pakistan’s plastic waste pollution and also help create a circular economy of reusable plastic.

The study says that a total of 62 per cent of stakeholders from the PET supply chain reported that 100 per cent of PET is recycled. Overall, about 94 per cent of all stakeholders confirmed that all forms of plastics are a major cause of pollution in land and water bodies. According to the combined result of all stakeholders, around 82 per cent were willing to provide PET to a recovery facility; about 18 per cent, however, were not willing to do so.

The event was also attended by Secretary at the Ministry of Climate Change Naheed Shah Durrani, VP and General Manager for Pakistan and Afghanistan region at The Coca-Cola Export Corporation Fahad Ashraf, CEO at WWF-Pakistan Hammad Naqi Khan, Senior Director Water, Food and Climate at WWF-Pakistan Dr. Masood Arshad, representatives from UNDP, CDA, GIZ, Federal Environment Protection Agency and members of Pakistan’s first plastic packaging alliance CoRe as guests.