The Sindh cabinet taking a historic and environmental friendly decision has decided to ban polythene and plastic bags in the province in phases, and in the first and initial phase ban has been imposed in Sukkur district which would be implemented within next three months.
The cabinet meeting was held under the chairmanship of Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah at 7th Floor of New Sindh secretariat. All the provincial ministers, advisors and special assistants attended the meeting. Those who attended the meeting include chief secretary Mumtaz Shah, IG Sindh Dr Kaleem Imam and concerned Provincial Secretaries.
The cabinet was told that normal plastic bag takes 400 to 1000 years to degrade and it is a startling fact that almost every piece of plastic ever made still exists in the environment. The amount of plastic waste has been increasing about 10 percent each year for past 20 years.
It was pointed out that as many as 12 billion to 43 billion bags were used in Pakistan in 1990-19. In 2005-6 the consumption rose to 43 billion and it increased to 55 billion in 2007-8. There is a 15 percent annual growth of the production of plastic bags, the estimated use of plastic bags in the country by 2018-19 would be 140 billion.
Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah said that his government has promulgated Sindh Environment Protection (SEP) Act 2014 and its Section 14(3) reads as “no person shall import, manufacture, stockpile, trade, supply, distribute or sell any scheduled plastic product which is non-degradable.” He further read “the scheduled plastic products must be oxo-biodegradable and the pro-degradant used must be approved by the agency.”
The cabinet discussed the matter and said the ban may cause loss to the traders. At this the chief minister said that nothing was above the healthy environment. He directed the Minister Environment Taimore Talpur to discuss the matter with the traders. However, the cabinet decided to impose ban on plastic bag all over Sindh, but in the first phase ban has been imposed in Sukkur where it would be implemented within three months. Latter, the ban would be expanded to other districts.
Pre-mature release: The cabinet took up the issue of Human Rights of terminally ill prisoners lying in different jails of the province for their pre-mature release. On the instruction of the government, the home department had sent a list of 27 prisoners terminally ill which as forwarded to health department for constitution of medical board.
The board recommended 12 cases, including the one who is condemned prisoner, the other one is Indian National, therefore his case has been sent to Ministry of Interior, the third one has been released from Hyderabad in July 2018. The four prisoners are Under Trial and their pre-mature release cases were forwarded to the cabinet for approval.
