RAWALPINDI: After a break of six months, the district administration has relaunched a campaign against plastic bags of less than 75 microns in shopping malls of the garrison city and confiscated over 3,000 kg of bags and sealed 13 shops.

On the other hand, some of the shopkeepers have adopted environment-friendly bags for which they charged more than Rs100 to Rs200 per bag. They also asked the consumers to bring their own paper or cloth bags.

The Punjab government had imposed a ban on the use of shopping bags of less than 75 microns in June last and launched a campaign but soon stopped and gave 45 days to shopping malls and traders to replace them with environment-friendly bags. However, the campaign has now started after six months.

A senior official of the district administration told Dawn that the teams would confiscate plastic bags of less than 75 microns (polyethylene & non-woven polypropylene) from retailers of commercial areas only.

He said the Punjab government had imposed a ban on the manufacturing, sale and use of polythene/plastic bags. He said the awareness campaign had been launched in the district to promote the use of paper and cloth-made bags in the market and bazaars.

He said that teams had been formed which would take action against the violators with the help of local police and confiscate the product as well as impose fines.

Meanwhile, Assistant Commissioner City Hakim Khan told Dawn that he visited different shopping malls and grocery store chains and confiscated 3,023kg of plastic bags and sealed 13 shops that failed to replace the plastic bags with paper ones.

Many stores and restaurants agreed to replace plastic bags, disposable plates and glass.

“We hanged banners made from cloth to create awareness among the people ‘No to plastic’,” said the assistant commissioner city. In reply to a question, the assistant commissioner said that the big grocery stores were of the view that they had to bear extra money on biodegradable bags and charged money from the consumers.

However, the visitors to the shops said that the shopkeepers were not giving bags and asked the people to bring their own cloth or paper bags to the store. They said that there were some known bakeries and chemists who provided things in their own bags without charging extra money from the consumers.

They urged the administration to confiscate the shopping bags from manufacturers and shops and asked the shopkeepers not to charge customers for paper bags or other materials as they already charged extra prices for products in violation of the price list of the district administration.

Published in Dawn, November 9th, 2024