ISLAMABAD: Minister for Climate Change Senator Sherry Rehman on Thursday said plastics were choking waterways and ending up on dinner tables.
She was speaking at the first “National plastic action partnership steering committee and national stakeholders consultation workshop on plastics free rivers and seas for South Asia (PLEASE)” along with stakeholders from across the country and abroad on strengthening innovation and coordination of circular economy solution to plastic pollution flowing through Pakistani rivers, mainly the Indus.
She called for the creation of incentives for the end users of single-use plastics in society. Plastic pollution is one of the most significant barriers towards the ongoing and future environmental interventions.
“While we can force penalties in some areas and ban single use plastics, penalties alone are not the solution. There will not be a shift towards a plastic-free society no matter how much we speak about it or use the right jargon on the circularity of the economy if we do not address the basic issues. In the near future, there will be more plastics in the seas than fish and Pakistan’s ocean and seas will be most exposed.”
She said that her office was in public-private partnerships with Coca-Cola to clean up the Malir River.
The minister said people were ingesting micro plastics every day through consumption of seafood, making it a crisis of our own creation that impacted our nutrition through plastic pollution.
“Law making itself is not enough to tackle this, and there is a need to create a better governance structure. Until we dis-incentivise the end user from using plastic and relentlessly educate the masses on the gravity of the issue, no actual change can be seen.”
She appreciated the data and analyses the stakeholders shared and remarked: “To find solutions and interventions that incentivise the poor segments of the society, mainly the lower income quintile group at the bottom of the social pyramid, think how the poor think, and you will end the plastic problem. Once you give them a viable, circular economy they can buy-in to without spending a huge fortune that will help kick start the process. We are in the process of chalking out a plastics national action plan.”
Published in Dawn, October 14th, 2022
