Agricultural lands endangered by plastic pollution

Stalinist

Maoist Green Media 18 May 2007 05:38 GMT

Plastic pollution is endangering agricultural lands

Plastic pollution is even effecting agricultural lands. Passengers traveling in trains are littering plastic cups, covers and bottles from trains to fields nearby railway tracks. We know that plastic does not mix easily with soil. If plastic waste is burnt, it generates poisonous gases. Famers of fields near railway tracks are facing problems with plastic littered by passengers. Plasted that was injected in the soil does not allow plants or paddy grass to grow properly and production reduces in those fields. Indian Railways announced that they had banned usage of plastic cups in trains but many vendors (including licensed vendors) are serving tea and coffee in plastic cups. Plastic covers and bottles are also widely used in railways. Railway minister Laloo Prasad Yadav announced that they will encourage usage of clay cups alternative to plastic cups in railways but many vendors are not using clay cups. Indian Railways is not really strict in restricting usage of plastic. Indian Railways is harming farmers by allowing vendors and passengers to litter plastic wastes on farm lands near railway tracks.

http://publish.indymedia.org/en/2007/05/885864.shtml
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ved · Telugu Veera Joined: 26 Feb 2006 Posts: 2046

No question. It is a huge environmental hazard recognized all over the developed world. I strongly suggest Govt to ban plastic. Or charge Rs 1 deposit / plastic bag which will be returned after the plastic bag is recycled.

This is how it works. You go to Chandana brothers and buy clothes. You should be asked the choice of either paper or plastic. If it is plastic you are charged Rs 1 /bag. Chandana brothers pay govt a tax of Rs 1 for every bag it uses which it passes on to the consumer. If you are diligent, you can go to any of the recycling plants deposit your bags and get your money back. Those bags are recycled. Only question is what is the over all cost of administering this program. Does the benefit of recycling pay itself?

kumars · Telugu Kavi Joined: 14 Dec 2005 Posts: 828

I'd like to propose a policy like below to completely eliminate the plastic bags.

Plastic bags poses big environmental threat to the society as well as main culprit in imbalancing the ecology though the threat was recognized long time back, Govt. has not established measures to control the usage.
Govt. for the sake of publicity initiate some measures now & then and escape from the responsibility.

To start with Govt. should restrict the raw material supplies to the poly ethylene bags mfrs and allow the commodity mfrs to collect the disposed material or used material to recycle and produce new bags.
this should be allowed for 2 years . To leverage the demand , commodity mfrs will take all measures to collect this disposed material lying country side for years. Govt. after one year should ask the polyethylene bags mfrs to shift to paper bags production and many subsidies should be given to them to encourage the paper bags prodn. by doing this all the plastic mfrs will be given a fare chance to retain their business.

Probably more tax should be charged on plastic bag mfrs so that the prices of the poly bags are artificially increased.also, Govt. should give some sort of benifits dierctly or indirectly to the paper bag users.

the transistion phase should be administred and organized carefully, so that the users or mfrsshould not feel the impact of change,

3 year , Govt. should ban the prodn of plastic bags and all the material (inventory in all forms) lying withmfrs should be purchased by Govt. at a premuim price .

In 4th year , our state is plastic -free.
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For Better Tomorrow
Kumars