Green activists at a seminar on Wednesday said that recycling of used plastic was not the solution to plastic pollution and they stressed the need for reducing waste to combat plastic pollution.
A number of green organisations including the Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association, the Bangladesh Resource Centre for Indigenous Knowledge and the Association for Land Reform and Development jointly organised the event at the Department of Environment auditorium marking the World Environment Day.
BELA chief executive Syeda Rizwana Hasan said that plastic production and consumption both harmed human health and the environment.
‘Business people say to recycle plastic which is hazardous and impractical to stop plastic pollution,’ she said, adding that there are many alternatives to plastic available in the market.
She said that the alternatives would boost local industry and businesses and save the environment.
Speakers said that once the people of the country led their life without plastic as they used jute or cotton bags and used glass or bamboo bottles instead of plastic.
They said that if plastic was released in the environment, it would pollute the environment and harm human health.
They demanded ban on single use plastic immediately like many other countries in the world.
They said that life without plastic was possible and for that they stressed the importance of formulating laws and creating public awareness.
Environment, forest and climate change deputy minister Habibun Nahar expressed her dissatisfaction over arranging the meeting with same speakers and listeners in the capital repeatedly as part of creating public awareness.
She asked all to perform own duties instead of blaming others. ‘Do start to change from you,’ she said.
Green activists accused the DoE of not being an environment-friendly agency as it used plastic even at the World Environment Day event celebrated on Monday.
They said the DoE failed to stop use of polythene bags banned in 2002.
DoE director general Abdul Hamid admitted that the DoE had limitations but he was trying to overcome their shortcomings.
‘We are not outside the Bangladesh. I cannot claim that the Department of Environment is fully environment-friendly,’ he said.
ALRD executive director Shamsul Huda moderated the event where, among others, BARCIK director Pavel Partha, Environment and Social Development Organisation secretary general Shahriar Hossain gave presentations.
DoE additional director general Kazi Abu Taher, Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation adviser Mubarak Ahmad Khan and DoE director Solaiman Haider, among others, spoke.