Waste of single-use polythene bags
SINGLE use plastics or Polythene bags have an extensive use in Pakistan due to its low cost, durability and moldability. In short, most of the human activities use of plastic is involved more or less.
This excessive use of plastic bags leads to pollution. The awareness regarding the pollution of single use shopping bags is so important in Pakistan as this type of pollution is increasing day by day.
Pakistan is the 6th largest country that produces plastic waste. Annually more than 3.3 million tons of plastic is wasted in Pakistan which is increasing day by day. In recent years there is again an increase in the plastic pollution in Pakistan due to rapid and unchecked use of plastic products which is really a serious issue to be concerned about.
If we gather the plastic waste all over Pakistan, the height of the dump will go above 16500m which is double to the K2 mountain. So we can imagine how much plastic waste Pakistan has right now.
There are many causes of plastic pollution in Pakistan like economic activities, miss management, unawareness etc. The plastic making factories contribute huge to the national economy so plastic making is beneficial to increase our revenue.
The plastics bags are being produced and will be produced in the future as well. The major example is the packaging industry in which the mostly plastic bags are used to pack the goods.
In Pakistan the Packaging industry generates huge revenue but on the other hand it is the largest source of plastic pollution — about 35% — because that plastic is just for single use until it is recycled by any other industry.
Managing the plastic or polythene bags is really a complicated process which requires a lot of expenses. The expenses of transportation, collection, segregation etc.
All these complications lead to just 25% to 30% percent of waste being properly reused and recycled and the rest of waste is dumped somewhere else.
Because as a developing country we may not have enough resources and money in order to resume or recycle all of the waste.
Our authorities are just careless in strictly applying and enforcing the policies made regarding managing the waste. In Pakistan, along with the packaging industry, tourism industry is also contributing a lot in the polythene and plastic waste.
The tourist places are visited by many people each year and those visitors throw the litter and that litter in the form of plastic pollution travels into streams, rivers, winds to other places. Our irrigation system is also affected badly due to polluted water and blocked streams.
In my opinion the major cause of this plastic bag pollution is the unawareness of a common man and common citizen.
Because at domestic level there is excessive use of plastic and polythene bags and a real change can only be done if we start from the very basic level.
A common man doesn’t care when he or she throws a shopping bag on the road while travelling or out of the house when used once.
This small but irresponsible behaviour of a common man leads to a huge amount of plastic bag waste in Pakistan. Now here are its effects. The plastic waste causes serious consequences for both humans and the environment.
The population living near the dumps of plastic waste is more likely to have health issues like many infections, cancer due to carcinogens, malaria, dengue, diarrhoea and many other fatal diseases. On the other hand, reused or refined plastics bags cause fatal neurological and heart diseases due to heavy metals, dioxins.
The plastic bags are non-degradable; they make the soil infertile because when the plastic waste is dumped into land the harmful chemical interacts with water and causes acidity or infertility in soil. Most of the beaches are covered with single use plastics.
The plastic bags waste causes the water contamination further causing the diseases and other many health problems: The plastic waste also causes the choking and blockage of water streams causing the overflowing of gutters and then the clean water is also contaminated.
The refining and burning of plastic bags release the toxic gases like dioxins, furans, mercury and polychlorinated biphenyls (better known as BCPs) into the atmosphere.
This pollutes the air and causes cancer and breathing problems in humans. Normally this type of garbage is burned, which is a serious cause of toxic gases being inhaled by locals.
This scribe would also like to discuss some of the possible solutions. In Pakistan, many efforts have been made by the Government of Pakistan but many of them do not have much impact on the reduction of plastic or single use polythene bags.
One of those policies is banning the plastic bags in the Federal Capital of Pakistan, Islamabad by the PTI Government.
This policy was not as successful as it should be. The reason is that the manufacturers of plastic bags strongly oppose this policy because they were in financial loss. They argue that the employment of thousands of people is dependent on the industry that manufactures the polythene bags.
So along with these types of policies there are always some sort of limitations that hinders the effective implementation of these policies.
For this there must be some sort of reforms and there is a need of reassessing the current policies as well. We can see the situation in Karachi that no one is ready to take the initial step, everyone is blaming others for the litter all over Karachi. Another most important thing is education.
Education is a tool that can make the impossible thing possible. This challenge of reducing the plastic waste from Pakistan can be solved by educating our present and future generations.
There must be a separate subject especially on the environmental issues of Pakistan in curriculum board so that there must be a deep knowledge about the reasons, causes and effects of these pollution.
