State of plastic

From the mountains of the Hindu Kush to the Indus River basin, from north to south, there is one thing that unites us in Pakistan: our love for plastic. Plastic waste fills up much of our landscape, waterways and seascape. Efforts to curb plastic use in Pakistan are limited at best. In some ways, Pakistan is no better than most countries in the world. In most ways though, Pakistan is much worse. Pakistan uses 55 billion plastic bags per years. This means that each individual is using over 300 plastic bags per year – or almost one per day. Plastic bag bans have been implemented in Hunza and Islamabad, but progress itself will remain limited without easy alternatives. It is almost impossible to imagine a world in which plastic did not dominate our lives – although Pakistan was such a world only decades ago. It wasn’t that there were no bags, but people would use reusable bags from local materials. Today, we are poisoning our rivers and our earth with plastic materials.The issue cannot merely be addressed through public awareness. Around 120 countries in the world have attempted bans on single-use plastics. This is where we could begin. Many far-flung areas have become dumping grounds for plastics. With no processing of waste disposal, plastic waste has nowhere to go. In Chitral, where plastic bag use was banned two-years ago, there has been no difference on the ground. Let alone alternatives to plastic, there are no proper waste disposal bins in such areas. The waste keeps making its way into the Indus River system, which is now considered the second most plastic polluted river in the world. Closer to the coastline, birds and marine species continue to consume plastic and die. But it is not just birds and animals that ingest plastics, humans do too. The WWF estimates that the average person ingests five grams of plastic per week. This cannot be good.The trouble with plastics is that there are little to no real disposal options. This makes plastic burning the method of choice for many, which leaves the air more dangerous with toxic smoke. It is easy to talk about a ban when plastic consumption is growing by 15 percent each year. Plastic manufacturers claim they provide employment to up to 400,000 persons. The climate change ministry can talk all it wants about introducing a ban on plastics in Islamabad, but no one knows what the alternative is. This is the question the government needs to answer.

from The News International - Editorial https://ift.tt/2Yp9hZp