F.P. Report
BALOCHISTAN: Balochistan Minister for Environment, Livestock and Dairy Development, Mitha Khan Kakar on Wednesday said the government has devised a three-phase strategy to free provincial capital from plastic bags under the initiative of Plastic Free Pakistan.
The minister said the provincial environment department with the collaboration of all departments concerned had made all preparations for a massive three tier campaign on plastic bags ban.
The department would start awareness campaign in the province and would distribute environment friendly alternate bags among the masses to overcome the menace of plastic bags, he added.
The department would engage people to people contact to impart them knowledge on the hazards of plastic bags and reason for its ban, the minister said.
He said that the next phase activities would focus on providing alternates and homemade solutions to the layman for plastic bags. There had been proposals by the manufactures to introduce household decomposing capacities for phasing out plastic bags, the minister noted.
He said Zero Plastic initiative would offer alternate jute bags for plastic bags and would be locally produced in Quetta.
The government would impose ban on plastic bags usage in the Quetta city in the first phase of initiative and would be expanding the ban to the other districts of the province to reverse damages caused by plastic products to the environment.
The minister said a strict action would be taken on selling of plastic bags banned under the Balochistan Environment Protection Agency (EPA) laws. He added that the implementation team would impose fine on the spot on the violators.
He said the government would take strict action against the importers of raw material used for manufacturing plastic bags from neighboring country of Iran.
He said that plastic waste hazard was an alarming global threat; not only does it directly endanger the environment, marine life and human bei
ngs, rather, it is the 8th largest contributor to global warming.
“We have made huge deliberations on plastic bags ban with civil society, academia, experts and media.”
