The Sindh cabinet takes a historic and environmental friendly decision and has decided to ban polythene and plastic bags in the province.

Implement on the decision will be followed from October 1, 2019.

The cabinet meeting was held under the chairmanship of Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah.

All the provincial ministers, advisers and special assistants attended the meeting.

Barrister Murtaza Wahab said that there will be a complete ban upon the sale, manufacture and use of plastic bags throughout the Sindh Province.

He said that that the decision has been taken by the Department of Environment, Sindh.

Wahab said that the government has started a campaign on plastic bags among the masses and in this connection cloth bags have been distributed among the public at Teen Talwar, Clifton.

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.

CM Murad Ali Shah said that his government has promulgated Sindh Environment Protection 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-degrading 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.

Later, the ban would be expanded to other districts as well.