FOLLOWING the federal government decision to ban polythene bags, the Sindh government also decided to follow suit in Sindh from Oct 2019.

This was done after a warning period of two months for shopkeepers. It is now over a week and hardly any shopkeeper has cared to heed these instructions of the government and polythene bags are being used in abundance without any check or fear.

Regrettably, this is not the first time that the government has failed to implement the laws and ordinances which it announces with so much fanfare using print and electronic media at a large financial cost.

As taxpayers, we expect the chief minister, law minister and the minister for local bodies of Sindh to take cognisance of this failure on their part and either to revoke this law or enforce it in its true spirit.

Farooq Dawood

Karachi

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MARINE animals are getting extinct because of sea pollution, while we see burning forests and melting glaciers because of climate change.

Karachi is one of the main victims of our own negligence.

Gutters are filled with plastic bags. Heaps of those undegradable bags are burnt. This results in toxic chemicals which find their way into human blood.

Imposing a ban on plastic is not the ultimate solution to this problem. The British government has a law of paying five pence on each plastic bag. It is reported that 90 per cent of plastic intake is curtailed and the money earned from it was given to the charity. We must take such measure to curb the use of plastic bags to save our future generations.

Syeda Mashal Fatima

Karachi

Published in Dawn, October 16th, 2019