I am a resident of Lahore city and a customary adherent of your regarded paper, composing this letter to you today to bring some light on the issue of plastic bags and their impacts on our environment.
There is no doubt that plastic bags have become one of the most reasonable and helpful things we use on a regular basis. But besides that, it is likewise a fact that these poly bags harm our current circumstances and ecology like nothing else. Consistently researchers are communicating their worries about the environmental degradation because of poly bags. Marine nature is particularly being obliterated by the broad use and irregulated dumpling of these poly bags in the stream and the ocean. The contamination/pollution has reached its degree point. Other than dirtying the whole climate, these poly bags are killing a large number of marine creatures who have swallowed them as food. Above all, they are annihilating the coral reefs that assist to keep up with the equilibrium of the seas’ climate.
Plastic bags are one of the main reasons for choking of drains, leading to urban flooding and directly pose a threat to biodiversity, including birdlife, animals and aquatic species,” he noted.
Single-use plastic bags have been banned in Islamabad since August 14, 2019. With the implementation of the ban, the citizens saw a coerce enforcement by the civic forces but due to the Covid-19 lockdown, the use of plastic bags has resurrected.
The civic bodies should not remain silent over this issue rather come up with some strategy to contain the use of plastic bags. There are reusable cotton and jute bags available in the supply which should be opted by the shopkeepers.
An Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official said that teams are working every day to enforce the ban and they impose fines as well.
A World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF) Report of 2019 claimed that every single human being was consuming around 25 grams of plastic per annum, which is equal to the size of a credit card.
The study claims that the plastic bags or containers used as a one-time solution become hazardous on repeated use as the polythene starts dissolving after a certain time period into the food item or beverage kept into it. The plastic waste dumped into oceans leads to marine life deaths as some species consume the plastic bags and consequently die.
Many developed western countries have already banned the production and usage of polybags. So it is high time for Pakistan to follow their example by putting a complete ban on non-biodegradable plastics to save our environment and oceans.
RIMSHA AZEEM
Lahore
