BUILD's thrust on adopting policy measures

Building Initiative Leading Development (BUILD) has urged the government to adopt policy measures to promote environmental sustainability in the plastic sector that cover areas like pollution reduction, recycling and reuse of plastic; better coordination among regulatory agencies and stakeholders.

The BUILD plea came at the Sustainability and Green Growth Working Committee (SGGWC) meeting held recently in the city.

The meeting was co-chaired by Abdullah Al Mohsin Chowdhury, Secretary of MOEFCC and Md. Munir Hossain, Director of BGMEA.

BUILD made two presentations, one on green financing and the other on plastic sector sustainability.

The first paper on Implementation status of Green Transformation Fund (GTF) was presented by Tahmid Zami, Senior Research Associate of BUILD. The paper finds that the USD 200 million Green Transformation Fund (GTF) offering USD-denominated loans for import of capital machineries and accessories for the export-oriented sectors of textile & textile products, leather and Jute is yet to gain traction in terms of utilization. Despite the lucrative interest rate and other features of GTF, its utilization has been very low.

Md. Munir Hossain, Director of BGMEA highlighted the importance of making businesses more conscious about the green financing facilities.

Manoj Kumar Biswas, General Manager of the Sustainable Finance Department of the Bangladesh Bank informed that the fund is from the foreign exchange reserve and thus its conditionalities is a bit stringent, he informed that about $5.84 lac  is waiting to be disbursed soon.

Participants of the Dialogue endorsed  the need for awareness creation, Secretary of MoEFCC suggested that  Bangladesh Bank will jointly organize GTF Familiarization multi-stakeholder meetings/programs in collaboration with BUILD.

Dr Sultan Ahmed, Director General, DOE  suggested for establishment of zero liquid discharge plant as one of the qualified areas to  be funded through GTF. He also put emphasis on the online monitoring of CETP.

Representative of Rahim Afroze put thrust on Legacy of Pollution.

After the loan period how the pollution would need to be controlled should also be in-built in the project, he asserted.

The study “Environmental Sustainability in the Plastic Sector” was presented by Dr. Rabiul Amin, Consultant of BUILD. He mentioned that the plastic sector is an emerging sector with USD 900m export and huge growth opportunity. At the same time, unplanned disposal of plastic creates environmental hazard. Among the recommendations, BUILD suggested quick adoption of a plastic sector policy with adequate provisions for recycling; incentives for plastic sector; establishment of a plastic industrial park; strong coordination between municipalities and the private sector for waste management; awareness-building among consumers for waste management, and so on.

Shamim Ahmed, former President of Bangladesh Plastic Goods Manufacturers and Exporters Association mentioned that despite environmental hazard, plastic is an affordable and convenient material and alternatives to plastic would cause more environmental pollution and incur more costs. 

Kamrul Islam, Sr Vice President of DCCI raised  the issue  of prolonged impact of hazardous chemicals and products and suggested for imposing anti-green tax.

Finally, Secretary MOEF put more thrust on use of plastic and change of our mind set towards use of plastic. He raised his concern that in the world the market of plastic is about $680 billion, Bangladesh would need to exploit the opportunity to  get a market share but it should be by avoiding the  harmful  impact of use of plastic.

-rmc//