The plastic ban in Mumbai seems to be finally taking off. Ever since the Maharashtra State Non-Biodegradable Garbage Control Ordinance was passed on March 1, the consumption of polythene looks like it’s reduced. Or so it seems.
The government has banned polythene or polypropylene plastic bags, manufactured less than 50 microns and are 20 cm X 30 cm. Mumbai seems to be becoming more alert in its crusade against plastic bags. The police have been raiding shops and factories since a couple of weeks to confiscate illegal plastic bags.

Here are a few examples that was mentioned by the leading daily The Afternoon Despatch & Courier, please read on.

 

They decided to go sleuthing on the streets and ask hawkers if they were indeed following the new rule.
Rajubhai has been a sandwich vendor since a couple of years now. He has a tiny stall on the bustling DN Road, where he makes plain and toasted vegetable sandwiches. When asked if he uses plastic bags to give a parcel to a customer, he proudly removes a stack of paper bags and says, “Ever since the plastic ban came into being, I have started using paper bags. The BMC has become really strict and they keep making frequent rounds to check whether we are using plastic or not. I buy my paper bags from a store nearby for Rs. 18 a kilo.”
The penalties for the usage or manufacturing of thin bags are fairly high. Shops and factories are being fined and are sometimes even closed for a month.
Another vendor, Ali, selling oranges said, “Usually customers carry their own bags but there are times when they don’t have one. I stock paper bags and they are more than happy to use them. I’ve been using paper bags since 20 days, as the BMC conducts surprise raids and confiscates our plastic bags. It’s better to be safe than sorry,” he shrugs off.
Another vendor, Rajesh Kumar has his cart full of juicy grapes and a small pile of paper bags. “I thought that the ban wouldn’t be effective but so far I haven’t taken any chances. I give only paper bags to my customers.”
Environmental groups appreciate this ban and look forward to it being a lasting one. Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh has decided the fine for manufacturers and stores selling plastic bags to be Rs. 5000, while individuals using plastic bags will have to cough up Rs. 1000.
Mahesh Lunch Home, too, is using plastic bags, which are more than 50 microns. An inscription on each individual plastic bag specifies its thickness and quality.
Despite the ban being imposed, there are still many people who continue to unabashedly break the law. Naseem Sheikh, a hawker, who sells oranges and water-melons, said, “Arre madam, these bags are cheap and resistant. I don’t have the time to go specially buy paper bags just because the government suddenly wakes up from its slumber. The ban will soon die a slow death like everything else. If the government wants to save the environment, ask them first to clean up the Mithi River.” When pointed out that the Mithi River was clogged up with plastic, Sheikh simply shrugged and smiled.

 

I hope and pray that this ban does stays on forever and does not fade away like all the other regulations brought in by the government.

 

Salaam Mumbai!!!

During my recent business trip to Dubai and the U.A.E, I made a mental note about the waste that was being generated by the people living and working there.
Curious to know more about this problem, I browsed several topics on this issue on the net, and lo!! behold this is what I found about the problem, I must confess that this problem has the potential to get out of control.

Please read on:

Dubai’s per capita waste output is the world’s highest followed by the United States. Plastic grocery bags, soft-drink cans and paper are rarely recycled. One municipal official says he is amazed how expatriates change when they land in Dubai.

Concerned about Dubai's dubious distinction as the world's largest generator of waste, the municipality developed a campaign to reduce garbage. Unfortunately, it failed spectacularly.

The campaign was dubbed Target 555 and hoped to bring down the garbage generated to 555kg per person (which is the standard for the EU's Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development) within four years.

The garbage generated per capita eight years ago was 725 kg per person. Instead of being reduced, the amount of waste increased and, according to the most recent figures, it is now more than double the targeted reduction goal.

Today, every person in the country generates 1,250 kg of trash annually.

A municipality official blames the failure of the community-based campaign on the "lack of public response". The other reason, he says, is the "phenomenal growth of Dubai".

The UAE has one of the highest levels of consumption in the world, with about one billion aluminium cans and glass and plastic bottles discarded every year.

It has recognised the need to implement more comprehensive measures to help prevent waste products from ending up in its landfills.
"About 40 per cent of the volume of household waste comprises beverage containers," says Lars Radberg, Managing Director of Nordic House, which distributes automated machines (RVM) that identify, sort, collect and process used beverage containers.

He said there should be incentives for people to recycle. Radberg believes that the government should enact "deposit legislation".

The consumer pays a little extra when buying the product, which is then reimbursed upon return of the empty container.

Alternative concepts such as curbside collection and bottle banks might give residents a good "green" feeling but provide no reward and then there are high transportation costs, he said.

Nordic House recently initiated its first project and has set up RVMs at 16 Emarat Petroleum stations across Dubai. Consumers are given a small gift, a discount or a raffle ticket for containers which are returned to the RVM.

While waiting for such efforts to pay off, Dubai's landfills keep filling up.

Dubai has four garbage dumps in Al Ghusais, Al Warqaa, Lehbab and Jebel Ali.

The dump at Al Ghusais, behind the Sonapur workers' housing compound, opened in 1976 and is the municipality's oldest. Dubai generates about 4,000 tonnes of garbage every day.

The only suggestion I could make is that reduce the use of disposable products in plastic, alluminium, etc. Educate the people on re-usable products be it at their place of work, at home. Shoppers could be encouraged to get their own re-usable bags rather than using plastic bags provided to them by the shopping malls.

This could make a small but siginificant impact on the overall scenario, as they saying goes "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a small step".

Please refer to the attached catalogue suncorp_bags_e_catalogue.pdf for our range of re-usable bags or you could write to us at sunil@suncorp.in

We at SUNCORP have already emphasised the issue of "plastic pollution" becoming a problem in the Middle East and behold things have started to change.

We are happy that IAHV ( The Internatinal Association for Human Values) are looking at the palstic problem.

We feel proud to enclose the article below so that everyone can read it and see the change that will happen slowly but surely.

As they say "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a small step".

Schools lead jute drive to boot out plastic bane

By Emmanuelle Landais, Staff Reporter - Courtesy the Gulf Times

 

Dubai: Jute bags, an alternative to plastic ones, are making their way to the UAE through schools and volunteers.

Jute is biodegradable, recyclable and environment friendly. The International Association for Human Values (IAHV) has partnered with schools in Dubai so that pupils can sell the bags among their friends and relatives.

According to IAHV research, a family of four brings home around 60 plastic bags from the supermarket a month. "One way to reduce these bags is by telling people about the alternatives and providing these," said Sandhya Prakash, IAHV volunteer.

Yesterday, she interacted with students from Jumeirah College where two Grade 10 pupils will embark on the resale of jute bags as part of the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme.

The campaign has the slogan 'Jute up' and bags will be on sale from January in the school.

To know more about our re-usable environmentally freindly bags, please refer to the attached catalogue. suncorp_bags_catalogue.pdf

Please folks

Reduce

Reuse

Recycle

Plastic Bag Pollution

 

Every year, around 500 billion plastic bags are used worldwide. 500,000,000,000. Five hundred followed by nine zeros. That's a lot of bags. So many that over one million bags are being used every minute and they're damaging our environment.
Big numbers can be daunting so let's put it another way. Every man, woman and child on our planet uses 83 plastic bags every year. That's one bag per person every four and half days. Of those 500 billion bags, 100 billion are consumed in the United States alone.

Pollution

Plastic bags are difficult and costly to recycle and most end up on landfill sites where they take around 300 years to photodegrade. They break down into tiny toxic particles that contaminate the soil and waterways and enter the food chain when animals accidentally ingest them.

But the problems surrounding waste plastic bags starts long before they photodegrade. Our planet is becoming increasingly contaminated by our unnecessary use of plastic bags.

Big black bin liners, plastic carrier bags carrying advertising logos, clear sandwich bags and a variety of other forms are all polluting our environment. They're lightweight, handy and easily discarded. Too easily discarded.

While they were rarely found during the 60s and 70s, their usage has increased at an alarming rate since they became popular during the 80s. Just take a look around you. Plastic bags can be seen hanging from the branches of trees, flying in the air on windy days, settled amongst bushes and floating on rivers. They clog up gutters and drains causing water and sewage to overflow and become the breeding grounds of germs and bacteria that cause diseases.

Dangers to Sea Life

Plastic bags are now amongst the top 12 items of debris most often found along coastlines ranging from Spitzbergen in the north to the Falklands in the south.

Animals and sea creatures are hurt and killed every day by discarded plastic bags - a dead turtle with a plastic bag hanging from its mouth isn't a pleasant sight but mistaking plastic bags for food is commonplace amongst marine animals. Plastic clogs their intestines and leads to slow starvation. Others become entangled in plastic bags and drown.

Because plastic bags take hundreds of years to break down, every year our seas become 'home' to more and more bags that find their way there through our sewers and waterways. Every bag that's washed down a drain during rainfall ends up in the sea - every bag that's flushed down a toilet (many small bags are), ends up in the sea - every bag that's blown into a river will most likely end up in the sea.

Add to that the enormous amounts of energy that's used every year in order to manufacture these bags and it's no surprise that pressure is being put on governments to make changes and consumers to re-think their attitudes.

Pollution Taxes & Bans

Following the levy of taxes on plastic bags in Ireland, usage dropped by 90 percent. Several countries have already banned their use and more will doubtless follow.

While anything that lowers our consumption is good, why wait until we're hit financially before we change our habits when changes aren't difficult to make?

How about taking previously used bags with you next time you go to the shops? Or even better - turn back time and do as grandma did and take a sturdy bag with you every time you go shopping.

Shop-owners would much rather you use their bags as they're a convenient and cheap form of advertising, but what's more important, shareholder profits or the environment?

Plastic bags can be re-cycled although only about one in every 200 ever find their way to a re-cycling unit. Find out if there's a re-cycling bin near you and, if not, lobby your local authority for one.

Greenhouse Gases

Some countries have introduced so-called "environmentally friendly plastic bags" that are biodegradable. These bags take about three years to break down into practically nothing and while that sounds like an attractive solution, the truth is that the process of breaking down these petrol based bags causes carbon to become methane which is a greenhouse gas.

It's also possible to get 'plastic' bags manufactured from corn. These break down very quickly and give off no more methane than any other corn product on landfill sites. Unfortunately, they're more expensive to produce and few shops use them.

Until a real alternative is freely available, the only solution is a re-think of attitude:

• Re-use bags when shopping.
• Choose biodegradable bags to use for litter (photodegradable bags used in this way are guaranteed to end up on landfill sites taking hundreds of years to break down).
• Re-use large plastic sacks whenever possible
• Refrigerate food in containers rather than plastic bags

Garbage Bins

One question that's often raised in connection with the plastic bag dilemma is what should be used to line bins if not plastic bags?

To answer that, let's go back in time to when plastic bags were yet to become commonplace. There's no need to go any further back than the 70s. What did we do?

For one, we had far less garbage. Goods had much less packaging than is the case today so we didn't fill our bins as quickly. Peelings, eggshells, tea bags and coffee grounds were all composted, as was any paper that wasn't needed for lighting fires.

What was left went into an unlined bin with anything sloppy being wrapped in newspaper first.

If we choose carefully when shopping so as not to bring home more packaging than necessary - there's really no point in bringing it home just to throw it straight in the bin when we unpack - and keep a compost bin going, the amount of waste that goes into the kitchen bin will be halved, at least.

Now that we have re-cycling plants, even less will need to be binned. Tins, bottles and paper (we generally have too much for the compost heap these days) can all be delivered to the local re-cycling point.

If you really must line your bins, instead of buying plastic liners, it's possible to use newspaper. You won't be able to pull everything out, tie it up and put it out, of course, but you'll be able to tip it from your kitchen bin into the main bin without too much mess. People managed before; perhaps the comfortable lives we have today just make everything appear more difficult than it really is.

Obviously, if you live in an area where the garbage collectors expect to find bin liners neatly arranged along the edge of the street rather than the bins themselves, you'll have to continue using plastic bags. That doesn't mean to say you can't lobby your local authority for change, though. Explain why you need to leave the bin outside and that it's their duty to support any move that will improve the environment.

Conclusion

By refusing to use plastic bags, you can make a huge difference to the pollution problem. Remember that each person uses about 83 bags a year. If there are four people in your family, that's 332 plastic bags less every year.

That's 332 bags less that will:

• Release toxins into the ground water from landfill sites
• Stay in the environment for hundreds of years while they break down
• Get into the food chain through animals that ingest small particles of plastic
• Waste energy during the manufacturing process
• Kill any of the estimated 100,000 marine animals that die each year of plastic pollution

These are all-important factors that have a profound affect on our environment and the creatures we share our planet with. Should we really put our own selfish needs before the needs of everything around us now and the lives of future generations? That's up to you to decide.

We at SUNCORP would like to play our part in making the world a better place to live in by promoting the use of cotton bags, if you or your organisation is interested please get in touch with us at sunil@suncorp.in

 

 

Plastics are non-biodegradable causing Mother Earth to reject them.

These are a serious threat to the ecological system as they hamper the growth of plants.

 

Plastic bags choke drains and sewers resulting in flooding.

Coloured plastic bags have harmful chemical pigments which contaminate food products wrapped in them. This can lead to harmful effects on the body in the long term.

Plastic bags if swallowed by domestic or wild animals may cause death by blocking the intestines.

 

Plastic emit a lot of smoke when burning, thus causing air pollution.

 

We at SUNCORP are dedicated to do our part in this world to eradicate the usage of plastic bags as much as possible.

Our environmentally friendly cotton bags in twill, canvas or plain sheeting fabric are suitable for all applications be it a seven star hotel or a super market.

 

Want more information, please send your queries to info@suncorp.in or sunil@suncorp.in