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International Plastic Bag Free Day today: Million bags used every minute
The International Plastic Bag Free Day was started by Zero Waste Europe, a Brussels based non-governmental organisation (NGO). The organisation in its website has presented several statistics to show how dangerous single-use plastic bags are.
The International Plastic Bag Free Day is being observed across the globe on Saturday. As the name suggests, the initiative aims to eradicate the use of single-use plastic bags, which have proven to be extremely detrimental to the environment. It has been often suggested that paper or cloth bags are a perfect alternative for single-use plastic bags.
The International Plastic Bag Free Day was started by Zero Waste Europe, a Brussels based non-governmental organisation (NGO). The organisation in its website has presented several statistics to show how dangerous single-use plastic bags are.
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Some of these are as follows:
> Plastic bags are used for 25 minutes on average.
> It takes a century to 500 years for plastic bags to disintegrate.
> Every minute, a million plastic bags are used across the world.
> Eighty per cent of marine litter is plastic.
“In order to limit the amount of single-use plastic bags some countries are opting for bans, taxation or different forms of voluntary agreements. Banning plastic bags is most effective in cases when they pose an imminent and clear threat, however, bans depend on strong law enforcement capacity,” according to Zero Waste Europe’s website.
It also pointed out that plastic bags are quite cheap to produce but they are very costly to clean from the environment. They also harm living organisms, primarily, animals as they tend to eat them. Further, the NGO classified plastic bags into four categories of High Density Polyethylene, Low Density Polyethylene, Non-woven Polypropylene and Degradable Plastic Bags.
Countries like India are some of the major consumers of plastic bags. Be it purchasing fruits or vegetables, groceries, food from small restaurants and dhabas or messes and alcohol, plastic bags have always been the go-to option for shopkeepers.
Over the years, NGOs, governments and other organisations in India have highlighted the collateral damage plastic bags cause to the environment. Supermarkets, pharmacies and several other establishments have eliminated plastic bags and started using cloth bags for which customers have to pay a very minimal amount. However, plastic pollution in India is at an alarming level. And not just bags, plastic plates, cups and other cutlery items are also equal contributors.
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The skyrocketing demand for face masks, gloves, PPE kits, sanitiser, disinfectants etc- which are essential to fight the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), have also aggravated the overall situation.
In June this year, the Union environment ministry launched a two-month awareness campaign on single plastics. Speaking to Hindustan Times, environment ministry secretary RP Gupta said on June 8 the campaign will comprise behavioural change, policy and regulatory regime for phase-out of single-use plastics, strengthening waste management infrastructure by engaging other ministries, partnership with industry associations and with producer, importer and brand owners.
Apart from this, the ministry in March proposed to implement a nationwide ban on the sale, manufacture, import of some single-use plastic products by next year.
