RAWALPINDI: Student volunteers distributed over 300 reusable fabric bags to shoppers in Rawalpindi and Bhara Kahu to highlight plastic pollution.

The campaign to promote the use of fabric bags instead of plastic bags was spearheaded by Oxfam in Pakistan and the army’s Canteen Stores Department (CSD) in Rawalpindi and Bhara Kahu to mark World Environment Day.

The theme for this year’s environment day celebrations is ‘Beat Plastic Pollution’. It encourages public activism, and the campaign is an effort to shed light on the threats emerging from plastic pollution.

This year’s theme encourages public activism to ‘beat’ plastic pollution

Oxfam Country Director Mohammad Qazilbash praised the volunteers and said: “World Environment Day provides an opportunity for each of us to embrace the many ways that we can help to combat plastic bag pollution around the world.”

He said one of the easiest ways to keep plastic bags out of landfills is to “refuse single-use plastic”.

“Take cloth bags with you when you go shopping. Let us foster a global movement where every individual, business and policymaker takes action against plastic bag pollution,” he said.

All CSD stores across the country use biodegradable plastic bags, marketing manager Ahmer Bilal Raja said.

Nearly a third of the plastic packaging used escapes collection systems and ends up clogging city drains, streets and polluting the natural environment.

Every year, up to 13 million tons of plastic leaks into the oceans, where it smothers coral reefs and threatens vulnerable marine wildlife.

The plastic that ends up in the oceans can circle the Earth four times in a single year and can persist for up to a thousand years before it fully disintegrates.

Oxfam organised its awareness activities in collaboration with the Indus Consortium. Hussain Jarwar, the national coordinator of the Indus Consortium, said there was a need to raise awareness among the public, and to have bans imposed by the government with heavy penalties on the manufacturing of plastic bags, their distribution and supplies with long-term policies.

However, low quality plastic bags are being sold in the open market without any checks from the Punjab Environment Protection Agency (Punjab-EPA).

The provincial government had in 2002 promulgated an ordinance prohibiting the manufacture, sale, use and import of polythene bags – black, or any other polythene bag below 15 micron thickness – but the ban has not been implemented in Rawalpindi.

The consumption of polythene bags has increased significantly, resulting in the accumulation of waste. Polythene bags can be seen lying in garbage heaps and littering areas, which can have serious health and environmental consequences.

A Punjab-EPA official said the sale of substandard polythene bags is on the rise but the agency does not have the equipment to check the required standard 15-micron thick bags.

Polythene bags are non-degradable in the sense that they take hundreds of years to degrade, he said.

When burned with trash, polythene bags emit carcinogenic gases that pose serious hazards to health.

The Punjab-EPA has served notices to the Rawalpindi Cantonment Board (RCB) to stop burning solid waste, including polythene bags.

He said polythene bags that are 15-micron thick, or greater, can be recycled and some units in Gujranwala collect and produce plastic furniture made from polythene bag waste.

According to official data from the City District Government, Rawalpindi city alone generates 1,200 metric tons of garbage every day, 45pc of which is polythene bags.

Published in Dawn, June 6th, 2018