'Plastic Haat' - a welcome move to curb plastic pollution in Moulvibazar

Polythene or plastic pollution is a continuous nuisance for Bangladesh, even though the country banned the use of plastic bags way back in 2002. 

Even after the ban, the production and usage of plastic bags are now higher than ever. They are cheap, easy to produce, and durable for many years. Still, they create water clogging, water and soil contamination, and many other environmental hazards as they take more than 500 years to biodegrade.

Even though there were many public campaigns for using biodegradable alternatives, the lack of public awareness and weak law enforcement hardly stopped using plastic bags in everyday Bangladeshi life. 

Moulvibazar, one of the municipalities in the Sylhet division, has adopted an unorthodox method to incentivise local people to collect used plastic bags and sell them to the authority to reduce the plastic population in the area.

The collection programme is modelled like a haat bazaar. Once a week, the Moulvibazar municipality authority will be present at the Mayor Square for the plastic sellers to arrive with their collected polythene bags and buy them at Tk 50 per kilogramme. 

This initiative gained much popularity as hundreds of people from across the Moulvibazar area gathered at this place with their plastic bag collection, and the municipality officials weighed the bags to give the sellers a fair price.

All types of small and large, colourful polythene bags will be bought at this market. These bags will be temporarily stored at the municipality's dumping station. Later, the abandoned plastic bags will be recycled and sold to any organisation capable of recycling them. 

If that is not possible, the municipal authority will dispose of it in an environmentally friendly manner.

On the one hand, plastic accumulation in Moulvibazar can reduc and limit plastic pollution in the area. On the other hand, the impoverished people of Moulvibazar found a new way to earn money to support themselves. 

The new income source has already proven effective, as some of the sellers reported that they are getting better prices selling to the municipality authority than the local scrappers. Some even mentioned that they are motivated enough to provide three to four sacks of plastic bags to sell.

Mayor Md. Fazlur Rahman inaugurated the Polythene Haat, and councillor Mohammad Nahid Hossain chaired the event. Retired Executive Engineer Md. Abul Hussein Khan, who attended the inauguration ceremony, emphasised the significance of this initiative in addressing the environmental disaster caused by polythene.

He mentioned that no municipality has taken such an initiative before. He highlighted the potential benefits of eliminating polythene from the soil, drains, and roads to create a clean, beautiful, and protected environment. 

Amidst the failure of policy and law enforcement, let the example of Moulvibazar municipality be an inspiration to curb plastic pollution in the environment effectively.

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