Use of contraband polythene-made shopping bag has become rampant in the Sylhet city and elsewhere in the district in absence of proper monitoring by the authorities concerned.
Talking to New Age residents of different areas in the city have alleged that the use of polythene bags has increased alarmingly everywhere in the city during Ramadan, badly affecting the drainage system.
The polythene bags are being used now at all kinds of business establishments including kitchen markets, confectioners, grocery shops, pharmacies and department stores in the city in defiance of the government ban on the use and marketing of the bags.
‘Almost all businessmen — from the street vendors to the posh department shops — are now offering the banned polythene bags to their clients because of its easy-availability and lack of regular monitoring over the matter by the responsible authorities,’ a schoolteacher Syed Ohid Ahmed said.
Talking to New Age Tuesday noon, vegetable trader Samru Miah of the city’s Shibganj Kitchen Market said they had no choice but to offer the polythene bags to the customers as it was the trend.
‘These bags are cheap and easy to get,’ he said, adding that they could refuse to offer such bags to their consumers if the bags were not available in the markets.
Siraj Miah, vegetable vendor of the city’s Bhahmamoyee Bazar,
told New Age that use of the polythene bags could be checked, if the authorities concerned would continue with drives in this regard.
The market sources said at least seven tones of polythene bags were being supplied everyday to the wholesalers in Sylhet city from Lalbagh in the capital.
The Sylhet City Corporation authorities blamed the use of polythene bags for intensifying water stagnation in the city.
‘People dump the used polythene bags here
and there, including in the canals and drains, which severely hampers the sewerage disposal system in the city,’ SCC chief engineer Nur Azizur Rahman said.
Being contacted, Sylhet Environment Department assistant director Mihir Lal Das said they were aware of the use of banned polythene bags in the city and elsewhere in the division.
‘Our drives are continuing in this regard,’ he said, adding that they were mulling over conducting a mobile court operation during Ramadan in the city to check uncontrolled use of polythene bags.
-With New Age input
