Lack of political will behind plastic menace: Legal expert

A lack of strong political will is one of the main causes behind the widespread plastic pollution in the country, despite an existing legal ban, said legal environmental expert Syeda Rizwana Hasan.

Some 3,000 factories are producing 14 million polythene bags in the country, she said, adding that the proliferation of plastic and polyethene use remains unchecked.

“From 2002 to 2004, there were almost no plastic bags available in the market, mainly due to market monitoring, officials’ drives in shops […] but now the government is walking backwards (to stop the plastic use),” she explained.

The government has merely shut down some factories of plastic producers, which resulted in no major outcome, she lamented.

Hasan, Chief Executive of Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA), said this at a discussion of the Bangladesh Sustainability Alliance (BSA) held at the BRAC centre in the city on Wednesday.

Asif Saleh, Executive Director of BRAC, moderated the discussion.

He said that BSA serves as a platform where diverse perspectives on preventing plastic pollution and protecting the environment are welcomed and encouraged.

Hasan, also a lawyer with the Supreme Court, said that there are regulations for using jute bags instead of plastic bags for some commodity packaging like rice and wheat, but the reality is the opposite.

Representatives from various organisations, including BRAC Enterprises, PRAN-RFL, Bangladesh Petrochemical Company Ltd, and Marico Bangladesh, participated in this session along with young climate activists.

Some of the industry representatives spoke on the challenge of finding cheap alternatives to plastic packaging and shouldering the responsibility of checking single-use plastic to the consumers.

On the contrary, some others showed examples of how Shonali bioplastic and jute packages can be an alternative to environment-friendly packages. They said that those initiatives need major investment to catch the market.

Hasan, in her key presentation, said that between 2005 and 2020, per capita consumption of plastic products in Bangladesh increased from 3 kg to 9 kg, with a significant portion ending up in land and rivers.

She suggested using environment-friendly, biodegradable indigenous materials like jute, fabrics etc for product packaging and everyday shopping instead of single-use plastic.

She stressed the need for enforcing existing positive laws in the country to regulate the arbitrary use of plastic products in order to halt plastic use and ensure effective waste management.

Challenges such as insufficient market monitoring and budget constraints in plastic waste management were also acknowledged in the discussion.

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