The New Nation - Internet Edition

Sheikh Arif Bulbon

Nylon net shopping bags - given by shopkeepers all over the country to customers for carrying purchased goods considering them an alternative to hazardous and banned polyethylene bags - are in fact equally harmful to the environment, said environmentalists.

Consumers are also using plastic or paper bags made out of fertiliser or cement bags - being unaware of the toxic residue left inside, which is hazardous to public health and the environment alike.

Out of all the hazardous bags, the polyethylene bags are wreaking havoc on the nature with its escalating use.

At Karwan Bazar market, one kilogram of nylon net shopping bag sells at Tk 120, while a single bag costs Tk 2. Without revealing his name, one of the manufacturers and a wholesaler said, "The government said polyethylene is bad. So we moved on to sell other items. How are we supposed to know whether nylon is bad or not? We are just trying to make a living here."

Dr Tariq Bin Yousuf of Waste Management Division of Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) said, "These nylon net bags that widely replaced polyethylene shopping bags all around the country are also non-biodegradable like polyethylene and can cause harm to the environment."

"Taking longer time to decompose means it might have a negative chemical reaction in the soil, changing its nature, disrupting growth of the vegetation and habitat of micro-organism and other

"If materials like these are recycled, it will cause less harm. However, it is hard to tell at this point whether these bags are being reused since no study has been conducted on the issue," he added.

"Non-biodegradable materials such as polyethylene or plastic also disrupt the process of groundwater recharge with rainwater. Rain water usually recharge the groundwater, but if there's too much biodegradable material in the soil, the water cannot seep through the surface," said another environmentalist.

As DCC is able to collect and dispose of nearly 60 per cent of the total solid wastes from Dhaka city, the remainder of the wastes, along with a considerable quantity of harmful plastic objects and polyethylene or nylon net bags, eventually end up in the sewer system and water-bodies in and around the city.

On January 1, 2002, the government imposed a ban on the production, marketing and use of polyethylene bags (bellow 100 micron) in Dhaka city, followed by a nationwide ban on April 8 the same year.

The decision was taken after hazardous and non-biodegradable polyethylene materials severely collapsed the public sanitation system.

The alarmingly increased use of the environmentally hazardous net bags will have the same impact on the environment, said experts.

"It is not possible for the law to specifically mention the names of every single hazardous item there is. The law provides a general idea about harmful elements," said a lawyer of Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA).

"The Environment Conservation Act 1997 specially puts emphasis on polyethylene and banned its use because of the extremely negative impact it had on the environment," he added.

Polyethylene is back in full swing - in fact, its use had never stopped because the government failed to provide an environment-friendly alternative to it and because of poor law enforcement. People would use whatever available to them such as the nylon net bags.

He stressed on the importance of having a proper waste management regulation, which the country lacks.

Raquibul Amin, environmentalist of World Conservation Union (IUCN), said, "We need a regulation that will give direction about safe waste disposal, collection and its reuse so that harmful elements like polyethylene or nylon net bags do not end up in the water body."

Besides, littering is not a crime in Bangladesh and anyone can toss anything on the street. Therefore, public awareness is also very important, he said.