Contain Plastic Pollution

The use of plastics has greatly made our lives easier. Cheap, durable, lightweight and highly versatile, plastics are used in a dizzying array of applications daily. The rise of global consumerism has only added to the demand for plastics. Nearly every activity, whether shopping in supermarkets, ordering goods online or conveniently transporting food and goods from one place to another, contributes to plastic use. Step by step, plastics have seeped into every human activity. This culture is so ingrained in modern society that it's hard to think it will change unless enforced. 

But that convenience comes at a huge cost: plastic pollution is arguably one of the biggest environmental issues today. Plastic pollution is occurring everywhere -- from the top of the world, Mt. Everest, to the fathomless depths of the oceans. Oceans are brimming with plastic waste. The fact that they don't decay for thousands of years, and even if they do, they break into microplastics, makes them a hazard for the environment and the health of living beings. The pollution and the resulting toxicity have become so pervasive that our foods, especially those sourced from water bodies, are now found to contain a harmful amount of microplastics. Human bodies, too, now contain microplastics, with a human brain now estimated to have five bottle caps' plastic. 

To raise this awareness and minimise the pernicious use of plastics, World Environment Day 2025 was observed on Thursday with the theme 'End Plastic Pollution'. The programme highlighted the urgent issue of plastic waste, which extends beyond the environment to contaminate everything we ingest. Calls have been made globally to minimise the production and use of plastics. In the pursuit of that goal and also to enhance their green credentials, many apparel and footwear companies now dangle tags flaunting the per cent of recycled plastics in their products. The government, for its part, has imposed a ban on plastic bags thinner than 40 microns. However, single-use plastics and bags thinner than 40 microns are still widely available in shops across the country. It seems that more needs to be done to make the ban effective.   

According to a news story carried by this daily, several private enterprises running plastic recycling factories are struggling to stay in the business, mainly owing to two factors. First, an insufficient supply of suitable plastic waste, about 40 per cent of which is unusable and so is discarded. The plastic wrappers in instant noodles, biscuits and chocolate packets, and gutkha pouches, among others, they say, cannot be recycled. Factories producing these items must be made to switch to better quality plastics by enforcing the policy of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), which makes producers responsible for their products throughout their entire lifecycle, including the end-of-life management and disposal of post-consumer products. 

Environmentalists have long articulated the necessity of such a policy. It's high time the government heeded them. What's more, there is currently no policy in Nepal that allows the use of plastic dust for road construction, even though many countries have adopted it as an alternative material. The government should formulate regulations to promote the use of plastic waste in road construction as well. Needless to say, containing plastic pollution also entails behavioural changes in individuals. People carrying their own bags obviates the need to use plastic bags.