Sindh announces to ban plastic bags from tomorrow

KARACHI: The Government of Sindh has banned the plastic bags across the province from October 1st (tomorrow), ARY News reported.

Sindh’s Environment Department has issued a notification to enforce ban on the manufacture, sale, purchase and use of non-biodegradable plastic bags of all sizes.

The government will enforce the law against the use of plastic bags and will take legal action against the violators.

The special teams will monitor different markets and those found involved in any violation of the law will be prosecuted accordingly.

Provincial environment department will be bound to enforce the law against the use of plastic bags.

Adviser to CM on environment Murtaza Wahab warned of strict legal action against those involved in violation of the law.

Wahab advised the citizens to use paper of cloth bags to replace polythene bags.

To be biodegradable means that a substance is capable of being decomposed by bacteria and other living organisms and does not create pollution.

Ordinary plastic doesn’t get degraded and stays for years and years, creating pollution and health hazards for living things.

The Sindh government has recently started a cleanliness campaign and imposed a 90-day ban on littering. Scores of people have been arrested in Karachi for littering since the ban came into effect.

A normal plastic bag takes 400 to 1,000 years to degenerate and almost every piece of plastic ever produced still exists in some form in our environment.

The amount of plastic waste has been increasing by 10pc each year for the past 20 years, and its accumulation poses grave threats to the well-being of living organisms.