From the once-pristine rivers of Hindu Kush to the slums of Islamabad, Pakistan is being smothered by plastic due to a lack of public awareness, government inertia and poor waste management.
Plastic bags are a large part of the problem — the nation uses about 55 billion of them each year, according to the Pakistan Plastic Manufacturers’ Association.
Beaches deluged with plastic waste and dying marine life entangled in bags have shocked other nations into action — about 120 have implemented some form of single-use plastic ban.
Pakistan is among them, but struggles with enforcement. There is no cohesive national policy and regional efforts often fail to consider the importance of educational outreach — with many in rural areas claiming to be unaware of the damage single-use plastic can wreak.
“Fighting for the environment? We have no knowledge about that,” said salesman Mohammed Tahir, who uses plastic bags to wrap vegetables for his customers.
The 42-year-old hails from the mountainous Chitral District, which banned the use of such bags two years ago, but to little effect.
“I like plastic bags,” resident Khairul Azam said while shopping at a local market. “Once home, I throw them away... I know it is not good, but we don’t have waste bins in my neighborhood.”
Instead, such waste litters the roadsides and hillsides. It also clogs the streams that feed into the Indus River, which is now the second-most plastic polluted river in the world, behind only the Yangtze River in China, according to a study by the German Environmental Research Center Helmholtz.
Plastics swamp the Arabian Sea coastline, where the sewers of the sprawling port city of Karachi spew its waste.
According to the UN, single-use plastic bags kill up to 1 million birds, hundreds of thousands of marine mammals and turtles, and “countless” fish each year.
However, in Pakistan, authorities say that the amount of plastic used is increasing by 15 percent each year.
Recycling options are limited and waste disposal is often woefully mismanaged — even in the capital, garbage is often simply burned in the street.
“Plastic doesn’t degrade. It only becomes smaller and smaller,” environmental researcher Hassaan Sipra said. “Animals eat it. You eat them. Then it generates liver dysfunctions, diabetes, diarrhea, but because it is cheap and convenient, people don’t see the health consequences.”
A report by the WWF estimated that an average person ingests up to 5g of plastic per week — about equal to the weight of a credit card.
Plastic bags have become part of the “culture” in Pakistan, WWF researcher Nazifa Butt said.
“We would never use a cup of tea without a saucer. You will never be sold anything without a plastic bag. It is considered insulting,” she added.
In Chitral, authorities first tried to ban plastic bags in 2017, with an additional measure passed earlier this year stating that only biodegradable bags — also criticized for their environmental effects — can be used in the area.
Authorities have also backed new environmental awareness campaigns in schools, a local official said.
However, many shops still do not use biodegradable bags and enforcement against single-use plastics remains minimal.
“The local government is not sincere,” Chitral traders’ union chairman Shabir Ahmad said. “They never check the market. They don’t fine the shopkeepers.”
“I can confiscate all the plastic bags in one hour, but then what is the alternative?” said Khurshid Alam Mehsud, a district administrative officer in Chitral, who added more time is needed to address the issue.
Provincial governments in Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, along with municipal authorities in Lahore have issued similar bans, but little has changed on the ground due to lack of law enforcement.
However, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government — which has long vowed to make environmental issues a priority — is hoping to reverse the plastic tsunami, Adviser to the Prime Minister of Pakistan for Climate Change Malik Amin Aslam said.
As of Wednesday next week, plastic bags are to be banned in Islamabad, with violators subject to heavy fines.
“This love affair with plastic has to end in Pakistan,” said Aslam, who hopes that the ban would serve as a “model” for the rest of the country.
Some shopkeepers in Islamabad appeared prepared for the move, but others said they were unaware of the measure.
Plastics manufacturers — which say that up to 400,000 people work directly or indirectly in the industry — have also raised concerns, but Khan’s government says that action is necessary regardless.
“It’s a health menace, it’s an economic menace, it is an environmental menace. It is something that we need to get rid of,” Aslam said.
Because much of what former US president Donald Trump says is unhinged and histrionic, it is tempting to dismiss all of it as bunk. Yet the potential future president has a populist knack for sounding alarums that resonate with the zeitgeist — for example, with growing anxiety about World War III and nuclear Armageddon. “We’re a failing nation,” Trump ranted during his US presidential debate against US Vice President Kamala Harris in one particularly meandering answer (the one that also recycled urban myths about immigrants eating cats). “And what, what’s going on here, you’re going to end up in World War
Earlier this month in Newsweek, President William Lai (賴清德) challenged the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to retake the territories lost to Russia in the 19th century rather than invade Taiwan. He stated: “If it is for the sake of territorial integrity, why doesn’t [the PRC] take back the lands occupied by Russia that were signed over in the treaty of Aigun?” This was a brilliant political move to finally state openly what many Chinese in both China and Taiwan have long been thinking about the lost territories in the Russian far east: The Russian far east should be “theirs.” Granted, Lai issued
On Sept. 2, Elbridge Colby, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development, wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal called “The US and Taiwan Must Change Course” that defends his position that the US and Taiwan are not doing enough to deter the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from taking Taiwan. Colby is correct, of course: the US and Taiwan need to do a lot more or the PRC will invade Taiwan like Russia did against Ukraine. The US and Taiwan have failed to prepare properly to deter war. The blame must fall on politicians and policymakers
Gogoro Inc was once a rising star and a would-be unicorn in the years prior to its debut on the NASDAQ in 2022, as its environmentally friendly technology and stylish design attracted local young people. The electric scooter and battery swapping services provider is bracing for a major personnel shakeup following the abrupt resignation on Friday of founding chairman Horace Luke (陸學森) as chief executive officer. Luke’s departure indicates that Gogoro is sinking into the trough of unicorn disillusionment, with the company grappling with poor financial performance amid a slowdown in demand at home and setbacks in overseas expansions. About 95