Breaking free from plastic in Pakistan
Strewn all across the beautiful city of Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, plastic bags are not only an aesthetic incongruence to the verdant beauty of the city, but also choke its drainage system and wreak havoc with the health of the population.
It is disheartening to see piles of plastic waste littered across not only the capital city but also the suburbs. Our cities are flooded by plastic waste in every nook and cranny. A drive through the scenic and majestic Deosai planes, the second-highest plateau in the world, left me in utter shock when I saw the sheer pile of plastic waste left behind by tourists, which eventually finds its way through streams and rivers to reach distant parts of the country before being finally dumped into the ocean.
Plastic pollution is a huge problem. Over the last 13 years, there’s almost one ton of plastic for every person on earth. In developing countries, an average person uses around 300 pounds of plastic per year, with usage increasing in emerging economies due to consumerism. Each year, an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are used worldwide. That comes out to over one million plastic bags used per minute. Billions of tons of single-use plastic end up as litter each year.
If projections by the scientific community hold true with current trends, we will see the footprint doubled in 20 years. We can no longer close our eyes and ignore the consequences of our plastic habit, which is wreaking havoc with fragile ecosystems around the world and in Pakistan.
We can no longer close our eyes and ignore the consequences of our plastic habit, which is wreaking havoc with fragile ecosystems around the world and in Pakistan.
Dr. Mehreen Mujtaba
Taking a cue from the rest of the world, the government of Pakistan decided to ban the use of plastic bags in the capital city of Islamabad starting on August 14th — its Independence Day.
It’s high time some concrete steps were taken in this regard since Pakistan belongs to the unenviable club of countries with the highest concentration of non-recyclable waste. According to a survey conducted by the Ministry of Climate Change, around 55 billion plastic bags were used in Pakistan in 2007, despite the fact that the Sindh government had imposed a ban on the production, sale, and purchase of plastic bags as early as 1994, followed by a similar ban in 1995 by the government of Punjab. However, realistically speaking, such bans didn’t produce desired results, partly due to the fact that they were formulated and passed at a policy level without charging a tax or incentivizing the use of recyclable alternatives.
Plastic bags are still widely being used not only in the fruit and vegetable markets but also in high-end grocery stores around the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi, despite there being a ban on their use. In addition, there’s an ambiguity regarding plastic in the minds of policymakers, who consider polyethylene bags a nuisance but disregard single-use plastic straws, coffee cup lids, water bottles, etc.
If we analyze and rationalize the major reason behind the failure of such policies, there is a lack of alternatives available to consumers, which is the driving force behind behavioral change. These alternatives must be incentivized, and in the case of plastic bags, a prudent move would be to subsidize and promote the use of biodegradable, reusable bags at grocery stores with a small fee charged if the customer chooses to use a plastic bag.
As for single-use plastic beverage bottles, a Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) manifesto has shown promising results in other parts of the world. DRS is a scheme whereby the consumer is charged a deposit that is reimbursed upon the return of the product to a collection point. Some countries like Indonesia are using plastic bottles as credits for using public transport.
However, plastic isn’t just a management challenge. A successful strategy would require policies directed toward reducing plastic production at its source. This is a maxim which most in the consumer goods industry are not comfortable hearing.
We have developed a voracious appetite for plastic in our daily lives. While changing the mindsets of people is an arduous task, with continuous education, follow-up and perseverance, Pakistan can achieve its desired outcome in the not so distant future.
