Plastic pollution is cutting us deeper than we think

I love travelling, especially when it takes me through our picturesque villages where the natural beauty of rural life unfolds in a breathtaking panorama. Visiting verdant vegetable farms is one of my winter craves and there I feel a profound connection to nature.

 

The journey is often made even more delightful by the charming rural towns and bustling local bazaars and junctions where I love the traditional foods, savouring roadside winter pithas, and the variety of local fruits, crops, and sweets.

This winter, my travels have taken me through several sub-districts in the country’s south and south east with one of my friends. However, as a development worker, I have noticed one troubling thing everywhere: Plastic litter. Thin plastic bags, food wrappers, single-use bottles, and other debris scattered around everywhere in the bazaars, junctions, towns, suburbs, and even around people's homes. 

 

 

If you visit countryside bazaars, towns and junctions while mindful of environmental concerns, the first thing you’ll notice is scattered plastic waste. These plastic wastes are so pervasive that they are silently eating up our rural landscapes, but this often remains out of our attention and discussion. 

Plastic pollution is one of the rapidly growing environmental threats worldwide. In our country as well, it is posing a serious threat to our healthy living which is being talked about frequently by the state ministers, civil society, and think tanks. Newspapers often publish news and articles addressing the issue. But most of our discussions often focused on plastic pollution in the city and urban areas as if it is only a problem there. 

But the fact is that plastic pollution is no longer an urban and city crisis alone, it is a growing threat in the rural areas as well. The towns are drowning in waste and losing their natural beauty because of the plastic litter.

 

 

This is now a serious threat to the viability of our rural eco-system and the sustainability of the rural communities but people in the rural areas are not aware of this silent threat. People in the countryside now do not carry cane-made baskets as they used to do while going to the bazaar. People now find the plastic bags convenient to carry things. As the plastic bags are often given free with purchases, then who cares about carrying a bag from home. 

 

 

In my recent observations, rural people do not use less single-use plastics and polythene bags than those in the cities and on top of that they have almost no sense of the environmental threat these plastic items are posing. Interestingly sometimes it becomes difficult to see the roadside small grocery shops in the rural areas because of the hanging packages of the chips, dhalbaza and jhalmuri and other food items.

 

 

In the urban setting, the situation is not much different. Though not very effective, there are waste collection and management systems and particular dumping areas in the cities. To me, there appears to be a growing public awareness in the city centres and big towns. But in the rural areas, there is no waste collection and management system, and as plastic items are not biodegradable, they keep piling up around bazaars, towns, homes, and roadsides. Gradually these plastic items affect the rural ecosystems and exacerbate climate impacts and biodiversity loss.

 

 

We are one of the top countries that mismanage plastic waste. Our per capita use of plastic is soaring every year as our economy grows. We generate around 3,000 tons of plastic waste every day

 

 

According to UNEP, globally one trillion plastic bags are produced per year and around million plastic bags are used every minute. This is a global concern and a lot is being discussed on how to reduce the production of single-use plastic and finding alternatives to it. 

Regarding Bangladesh’s plastic waste production, all the statistics are shocking. We are one of the top countries that mismanage plastic waste. Our per capita use of plastic is soaring every year as our economy grows. We generate around 3,000 tons of plastic waste every day. 

 

 

Around 14 million thin plastic bags are used daily in Dhaka. And most of the poly bags end up being on roads, in the drains, canals, rivers, open spaces, and in the sea. In a recent roundtable discussion hosted by UNOPS Bangladesh, it is revealed that the Bay of Bengal will receive five times more plastics in 2025 than 2010. 

 

 

Undoubtedly, this is a real challenge for such an overpopulated country like Bangladesh, one of the densest per capita human habitations in the world. Additionally, Dhaka is one of the top cities in the world with the worst air quality. A new study by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) last week revealed that air pollution kills 102,456 people in Bangladesh every year. Mismanaging and burning plastic waste is one of the main reasons behind it.

 

 

As plastic items often create blocks in the drainage, we were the first country to implement a ban on plastic bags in 2002 but that did not work out for many reasons. Even a recent ban seems to be ineffective due to not having practical alternatives in the market. Being the second largest producer of jute fibre in the world, it should not be hard for us to find a low cost and lightweight alternative to single use plastic bags. The use of jute bags would have a significant positive impact on plastic pollution but that would not solve the whole problem as plastic is used in many other purposes in our daily life. 

 

 

So, we need to invest heavily on public awareness and behaviour change, and ensure people understand the plastic threat and use plastic bags responsibly. Companies that are profiting from cheap packaging can pay for this public awareness campaign. We should also act so that durable, eco-friendly, jute bags are popularized. Any action needs to be swift, before we pay an irreversible price.

 

 

Parvez Uddin Chowdhury is a development worker, writer and climate enthusiast.