Banned poly bags plague port city

Outlawed polythene bags are ubiquitous in Chittagong city where they are clogging up the drains and canals because authorities are doing little to enforce Michael Kors Outlet the ban on them. Despite the prohibition, poly bags are part and parcel of life in the port city where they are available in every market and shop.

Department of Environment (DoE) sources said they cannot conduct drives against the use of the banned item because of a manpower shortage. But the rampant use of Michael Kors Outlet the environmentally unfriendly item has cost Chittagong city residents widespread flooding during the monsoon season because of blocked drains and water channels.

The government, in 2001, slapped a ban on the use of 40 to 50 microgram polythene bags after it was determined that the bags were a major contributor to the 1988 and 1998 floods that submerged two-thirds of the country. The law did not apply to export-oriented polythene production. The banned bags were seen Michael Kors Factory Outlet in retail shops, at kitchen markets and groceries, and in the city’s wholesale markets, in short everywhere people traded goods.

DoE sources said poly bags were brought into Chittagong from factories in Dhaka and Chandpur on covered vans and by boat, before being distributed to the city’s traders and retailers in the dead of night. Furthermore, factories that Michael Kors Outlet Online produced poly bags for the readymade garment (RMG) industry were also illegally supplying poly bags to Chittagong wholesale and retail businesses, sources added. Businesspeople in the city told the Dhaka Tribune that one pound of poly bags – they are priced by weight - sold at Tk75 to Tk80.

They said consumer preference for polythene packaging drove demand for the bags. Md Zafor Alam, director Michael Kors Outlet Stores of the Department of Environment, told the Dhaka Tribune at least two mobile courts conducted drives each month under a deputy commissioner.