KARACHI, April 25: The increasing trend of using Woven Polypropylene (WPP) bags for sacking and packing of cereals, food products, especially wheat, poses a grave threat to environment and life.

Available data shows that the use of WPP bags has increased from eight million bags used in 1994-95 to 11 million in 2001. The figure may rise to 16 million bags this year.

There is an urgent need for concrete steps to check the trend because the undergoing procurement of wheat in the country, especially in Punjab, may provide an impetus to the trend and cause many diseases including cancer.

According to various studies, wheat being a poor conductor of heat generated due to the respiration process is not quickly dissipated. When wheat is stored at high moisture or temperature, it respires rapidly. This process goes on and wheat gives off carbon dioxide and water vapours.

Jute bags, traditionally used for wheat procurement, absorb the moisture that dissipates into the environment, while in the case of WPP bags it gets trapped inside the bags. Since the process of respiration continues, wheat becomes mildewed and is attacked by fungus.

WPP bags, once left exposed to the sunlight, even under tarpaulin, disintegrate into powder of which they are made, which gets mixed with grain. It is recollected and re-bagged for onward transportation to flour mills and gets polluted and contaminated with fine powder of WPP and is consumed by humans.

The disintegrated WPP stays in the environment forever and, being non-biodegradable, can never be disposed off. The powder of these bags also contains deadly elements such as lead, cadmium, chromium, copper, nickel and zinc. Most of them are banned in paints, but are used in WPP bags and eaten by human being through wheat and flour contamination.—PPI