Staff Reporter Islamabad
Prime Minister’s Special Assistant on Climate Change, Malik Amin Aslam, has called upon the plastic producers to play their rule in managing the menace of plastic waste in sustainable manner, which is playing havoc with environment and public health.
Addressing as a keynote speaker at a high-level National Consultative Policy Dialogue on Plastic Waste Management, he emphsised that the incumbent government is very much committed to tackling the growing environmental menace of plastic waste.
It has taken several policy and legal measures in this regard under the Prime Minister Imran Khan’s vision for Clean Green Pakistan and sustainable consumption and production initiatives for achieving environmentally-sound sustainable development, said a news release issued on Sunday.
Yet, these efforts for sustainable plastic waste management are unlikely to achieve any desired results as long as the various stakeholders – involved in manufacturing, sale and use of plastic materials – play their parts under their extended responsibility towards plastic waste management, PM’s aide Malik Amin cautioned the participants from various national and international organisations involved in plastic manufacturing, use and plastic packaging of various products.
Organised jointly by the Ministry of Climate Change and the Pakistan Collect and Recycle (CoRe) Alliance, the day-long stakeholder engagement event held here on Sunday at a local hotel aimed to discuss at length and frame responses to shared challenge of packaging waste and collection mechanism, drive performance improvements and ultimately strengthen collective action for sustainable collection and disposal of plastic waste in a scientific and environmental-friendly way.
He highlighted that large-scale plastic waste, which accounts for significant share in overall municipal waste, is generated in the country as a result of use of various products of beverage companies and urged the firms to exhibit heightened level of their responsibility to retrieve their plastic waste and recycle it under the extended responsibility measures.
The PM’s aide Malik Amin also recalled that there has been enhanced engagements with companies overall last several weeks, which are selling products in plastic bags in the country, to ensure their plastic waste at the tail-end level in neighborhood markets is also collected and recycled properly as a part of the government’s measures for tackling the soaring quantity of municipal waste and the problem of choking of drains.
However, it is heartening to note that some of the firms have pledged to introduce technology measures for managing and recycling the plastic waste generated as a result of the consumption of their products in plastic materials, he informed the participants.
Spelling about figures about the plastic waste in the country, Malik Amin Aslam said Plastic consumption in Pakistan is on the rise with 15 annual growth, most of which ends in landfills, unmanaged dumps or strewn about land.
