Indore : Despite many efforts to discourage use, plastic bags continue to dominate in the buyer’s market in the city as civic authorities are in a state of suspended animation over the crucial issue of discouraging their use.
Plastic carry bags are very much in circulation and are being used extensively by most of the small traders of vegetable, fruit, milk, fish, meat, food joints and small time grocery stores across the city.
On the brighter side, big supermarkets and branded showrooms have started to charge their customers for plastic bags to discourage its use.
Since plastic bags are cheap, customers prefer them to substitutes like jute, cloth and paper bags which are comparatively costlier. Plus, the substitutes are rarely available or unavailable at small shops.
“Customers will never purchase jute or cloth bags for daily use items such as vegetable, milk etc so we use plastic bags only. Since plastic bags are cheap, we can give them to the customers for free with purchased items,” Ashish Jain, a vegetable vendor said. He added that only a blanket ban on plastic can get rid of plastic bags in the city.
What is therefore required is to follow the examples of some metropolitan cities which have now made it mandatory for all perishable consumables store owners, malls, and branded showrooms to issue a paper or cloth bag at premium price in case a customer fails to bring his own bag. The move will hopefully reduce generation of plastic waste.
Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC) said that the right to impose a complete ban on use of plastic bag lies with the state government so it can’t do much on it.
On the sale of plastic bags with less than 40 microns, the IMC officials cited legal provisions and washed off their hands and passed the buck to pollution control board officials.
“We have limited rights to crackdown on illegal sale of plastic bags. After the initial stages, such cases and other legal issues are being maintained by the PCB”, said Dr DC Garg, Chief Health officer at the IMC.
Describing the procedures, the IMC official said that the IMC squads check the usage of polythene at various places and then handover the cases to PCB.
“We are dedicatedly trying to deal with the problem. We are also planning to contact the traders to encourage them to minimize the use of plastic bags. In addition, when we come across any manufacturing malpractices, the entire pack of poly bags and other related materials are seized and later the court takes over the case. Cases against close to 90 per cent city based traders who are involved in selling buying and or manufacturing poly bags are lying in court”, said Dr Garg, Chief Health officer at the IMC.
Meanwhile, when approached the officials of the pollution control board over the issue, they said that the ban is on poly bags below 40 microns. Also, a cell of the board regularly checks with the manufacturers and makes sure that they aren’t manufacturing poly bags below the guidelines.
“One of our cells keeps checks on the manufacturing, selling and buying of these polythene bags. They check with the manufacturers on monthly basis and make sure that the supposed guidelines are followed. Moreover, the right to take any action in this regards is reserved with the IMC authorities”, said RK Gupta, Regional Director at the Pollution Control Board.
