|
Bangladeshis create a huge amount of
trash everyday, much of it needlessly. While people formerly used
ceramic or glass dishes, wrapped items in banana or other leaves, and
used jute bags for shopping, people have now grown used to using one-use
plastic bottles, dishes, and bags, and to tossing their non-biodegredable
litter in the streets, where it ruins the visual environment and, by
blocking our drains, further contributes to flooding.
Polythene bags pollute the environment in
their production and disposal. They block drains. They do not
biodegrade, and so they poison the soil. The chemicals involved in
their production cause cancer. Replacement of bags made from jute--Bangladesh's "golden
fiber"--with polythene bags produced in small factories has caused
thousands of people to lose jobs and the entire jute industry to decline
tremendously. The bags impose tremendous health, environmental, and
economic costs on the people of Bangladesh.
WBB seeks to limit the use of such
unsustainable products and to bring a return to more sound practices and
materials, that will benefit not only the country’s environment, but
bring about economic benefits to producers as well.
For more on WBB's efforts to reduce the
use of one-use disposable plastics and polythene bags, please click on
one of the buttons to the left (activities, research, media). |
