World Consumer Rights Day (WCRD) is an annual occasion of celebration and solidarity within the global consumer movement. This very remarkable day was established on 15 March 1983 to protect consumer rights worldwide. This day has become an important occasion for mobilising citizen actions against market abuses, social injustices and other issues, which have direct or indirect misapplications on consumers’ livelihood. World Consumer Rights Day is an opportunity to secure the basic rights of all consumers and also demand for the respect and protection of those rights.
On March 15, 1962, US President John F. Kennedy addressed the US Congress for the first time, outlining the definition of consumer rights. Kennedy said in his Congressional Statement ‘consumers by definition include us all, they are the largest economic group, affecting and affected by almost every public and private economic decision.The consumer movement now marks March 15 every year to raise global and national awareness of consumer rights.
Each year, Consumers International (CI), the world federation of consumer groups, sets out campaign agenda and highlights the problems and challenges faced by the consumers. To mark this year’s WCRD, the campaign theme is “Tackling plastic pollution.”Combating plastic pollution is a global challenge which requires coordinated, international solutions. As a global consumer movement, consumer organisations can play a critical role in dealing with this issue and promoting the sustainable consumption and production of plastics.
Plastic is a highly useful material in our everyday lives. Because of their wide-ranging uses owing to their low cost, lightweight, high durability, and easy availability, they have turned into an unavoidable part of our lives.But our consumption and production of plastics, especially single-use plastic, have become unsustainable. This is impacting our ecosystems and also causing negative environmental consequences. This includes pollution of the local and international environment, and threatening human health.Plastic has now become a global threat because of their long-lasting negative effect on every compartment of the environment-ai.r, soil, and water.
Due to non-biodegradability of plastic, they remain in the environment for an incredibly long time. They move from one compartment to another of environment and join the human food chain, adversely affecting human health. In addition, toxic chemicals emit when plastics and chemical actions occurred.These are also hazardous to our health. It has been showed that excessive use of plastics is also significantly impacting the environment and public health of our country.
A rapidly developing country, Bangladesh has a large population of 166 million. Though Bangladesh has many limitations upstretched by this dense population, it has a satisfactory economic growth. It has over three thousand small and big plastic industries at present. In the fiscal year 2017–18, plastic has been recognised as the 12th highest export earning sector in Bangladesh.
With rapid development, the per capita consumption of plastics in Bangladesh has increased from 2.0 kilograms per year in 2005 to 3.5 kilograms in 2016. At present 3000 tons of plastic waste is produced in Bangladesh per day, which is the 8% of total generated waste. In 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic, the use of single plastics has increased many folds. Around 96% of the people worldwide are using different personal protection equipment (PPE) ranging from disposable mask and face shield, which are directly being disposed to environment and causing plastic pollution hazard.
Currently, urban areas of Bangladesh generate 633,129 tons/year of plastic waste of which 51% plastic waste gets recycled, and the recycling of the remaining could save USD 801 million every year. However, recently the two city corporations of Dhaka city, Dhaka North and Dhaka South, have emphasised the plastic collection from the users, but most of them along with other waste get dumped in landfill.
Bangladesh has been recognised as an internationally noteworthy nation in the plastic pollution disaster.But we have a lack of knowledge, understanding and capacity to recognise and address this critical environmental and public health issue.Recycling of waste is the best economic and environment friendly practice to get rid of this huge plastic load. But recycling practices are still in the nascent stage in Bangladesh.
People find it easier to dump the plastic waste in open places or near roadside or in the river or sea shore rather than disposing them properly to be recycled. For example, national plastic consumption was 545,300 ton and the plastic waste available for recycling was about 50,213 tons in 2014.This implies that only 9.2 percent of total plastic consumed in the country was available for recycling.
The plastic recycling companies in Bangladesh only export the recycled plastic flakes rather than making any products which holds a promising future. With the high calorific value of plastic waste ranging from 20 to 46 MJ per kg, researchers reported that about 5115–11,760 MWh/d electricity can be generated through gasification or incineration energy recovery from the daily plastic wastes.
Recently, the government has started the installation of two waste-to-energy power plants in Dhaka.One of those is at the AminBazar landfill and the other is at Matuail landfill. These waste-to-energy power plants are using daily waste produced by the urbanites, aiming at making a habitable and a clean city.
Without checking plastic production and propermanagement of generatedwaste from them, it would be quite difficult to achieve the sustainable development goal. United Nations set this goal in 2015 to ensure a poverty and pollution free, peaceful planet Earth by 2030. In response to that, the country has already taken some measures.But the plastic use and subsequent pollution have not been curbed yet in an expected manner. Therefore, we should give more emphasis on tackling plastic pollution by adopting a potential eco-friendly alternative to curb the plastic pollution.
Tackling plastic pollution
Md. Khalilur Rahman Sajal
Executive Director
Voluntary Consumers Training and Awareness Society (VOCTA)