Bangladesh has the enviable record of becoming the first country in the world to have banned polythene shopping bags. Many developed countries reportedly tried to emulate the feat rather unsuccessfully. But after 12 years of effecting the ban on production, marketing and use of polythene less than a certain thickness -55 microns, how does the country with this distinctive record fare now? Clearly, the law is conspicuous only by its random violation.
But why? The reason is not far to seek. Ask any grocer, a vendor selling green chilli or sliced cucumber or hog apple or an ordinary street restaurant owner why they are using polythene bags for serving their customers. Each one will most likely feel ashamed to defend their action but then pose the question, "What shall we use then?" Well, you may point out, "Why not net?" But then it is your turn to be embarrassed. Curries and pulse cannot be parcelled in nets. Many of the commodities a grocer can put in a shopping net for customers but not all items for reasons of inconvenience.
The deciding factors here are convenience and cost. A shopping net costs between Tk 1.0-2.0 whereas a polythene bag is much cheaper. Additionally, it has an advantage over any other alternative because it is resistant to water and other liquids. In case of small purchase, even a customer cannot expect that the seller gives him the commodity in a packet that costs Tk 1.0-2.0. For a small shopkeeper or a vendor it proves quite uneconomical.
Evidently, the ban fell flat on its face because of the lack of a viable alternative. A polythene shopping bag is easy to carry and because it is damn cheap, it can be disposed of readily without thinking of the cost involved. People preserve a shopping net for its reuse but they do not have to be caring about a polythene bag because the seller do not charge an extra cost on account of it. At times shopkeepers are overly generous in distributing the gratis by needlessly arranging items in several small polythene bags before putting all those in a larger one or two in order to ensure double protection.
Thus, sellers and buyers of essentials seem to have embarked on a spree of gross misuse of these harmful shopping bags. The land with the distinction of banning the bags now seems to have gone crazy over unrestricted use of those. People are aware that the substance is unsafe both for use and disposal. The country uses 3.3 billion such bags annually and all these are disposed of haphazardly. In cities, these bags get carried away into the drains and in villages they get collected in water bodies or corn fields, particularly if the lands are submerged in the monsoon.
So, this is collective insanity -one that is imperceptively leading the nation towards a mass hara-kiri. The annual use and disposal of 3.3 billion polythene bags along with about 17,000 tonnes of plastic waste going to landfill speak volumes for the danger posed to the country's environment, land and water bodies. Such synthetic materials render cultivable land infertile and water bodies unfit for survival and growth of aquatic lives.
In a situation like this, the development of ultra-thin jute sheet at the Adamjee Jute Mills under the supervision of a local scientist certainly holds great prospect for the nation. A local newspaper carried a pictorial report on production of this likely alternative to polythene. The sheet can, according to the report, rival polythene in convenience and quality. Additionally, it is more durable and can be reused. Bio-degradable, its demand will be worldwide. Jute can once again regain its premier commercial status if only the technology can be used extensively to produce this environmentally friendly sheet and from sheet to shopping bags.
