Pay for plastic bags-Is it effective, to reduce use of plastics??

[keerthi sureshbabu]

MoEF in Feb 2011 brought a rule that shop keepers should not provide plastic bags free, instead customers shold pay and buy bags to carry their purchased items. customers should get thrie own bags from home. but when people (customers)when they purchase items in 100s and 1000s they dont mind paying 50paisa -Rs5 for platic bags. people dont carry a bag from home when they go out for malls such as big bazaar,spencers,nilgeris, reliance fresh etc... for buying vegetables ang grocerries in local markets it is possible to take bags from home.

Instead of giving a plastic bags for money, the shop keepers can give a gunny bag quality kind a jute bag such that the weight of things is manageable. for the same Rs5 - Rs10, waste cloth bags, paper bags, jute bags can be provided. i feel think can bring down use of plastics more effectively.

is the current rule to pay and buy plastic bags an effective one??

[ruchira ghosh]

its a nice attempt but just think in an integrated way, in one way we shout for save trees and in other way we want paper bags should be encouraged, in one way we want to ban plastics bags but in other way we impose just a cost of Rs5-Rs10 where people in metro rarely think before spending Rs100 per day from their pocket, in case of encouraging cloth bags may be good option but countable number of people are going to ask for bags with good face value. Thus what we need to do is to encourage people to bring their own bags or imposing stringent laws to do so and this can only help to adopt reuse theory, each and every time we shop, purchase a bag, throw it and increase the solid waste quantity should find a way out like  conceiving re circulation of  bags.

[Ruchika Sharma]

yeah its true that some appropriate and strong action must be took to stop usage of plastic bags,even though the government has banned the plastic bags, they are commonly visible and also in great numbers.The big shopping complex must be bind under some regulations to use either cloth or paper or biodegradable bags.but above all its on the user what to opt, i want to confess that sometimes just to save comfort i too has opted for plastic bags.So if we want to see the laws working we should first has to make ourselves adaptable to them......

[Ankita Jena]

Our aim should be to reduse the use of plastic bags not encourage people to pay Rs 5-10 and get away with it. Now a days, people don't mind paying this much for convenience. Initial system of ban on plastic bags was encouraging people to carry their own bags but due to this new rule of paying and getting bags is worsening the situation. The whole purpose of ban on plastic carry bags is to alleviate the burden on environment instead of aggravating the situation. We should try to spread awareness among people about the disadvantages of plastic. It is time to change the mindset of the people about these things and persuade them towards environmentally friendly ways..... .

[kamla ravikumar]

There should be a total ban on use of platic.This mid-way compromise of paying will encourage the rich to pay and get away.Unless laws are stringent we will not be able to do away with the menace of plastic bags.Why is it so difficult for people to carry cloth bags from their homes?

I would like to help people spread the word of recycling old sarees and dupattas to make cloth bags.In Chennai I collect old sarees and dupattas and convert them into cloth bags.From one sari you can make five cloth bags and from one dupatta you can make two cloth bags.Let us recycle old sarees and give them to shops in our neighbourhood .Once shops start providing cloth bags people will stop using plastic bags.Please help unemployed women in your area to stitch these cloth bags from sarees and dupattas.Self help groups of women are also doing this work -Kamla Ravikumar, Chennai

[Rimakshi Choudhury]

I don't think that its effective. I m from Guwahati and even in our city the mall are following this notification and started charging for plastic bags. the costs varies from Re 1 to Rs 5 depending on the size of the bags. Initially i saw many people bringing shopping bags to the mall specially Big Bazaar and started avoiding plastic bags but now a days most of the the shoppers are willing to pay for the bag instead of carrying their own bags. i interacted with some people whom i met in the billing line and most of them said that its OK for them to pay Re 1 or 2 for a plastic bag instead of carrying one from home. i dont know if they are aware of the harmful effect of the plastic or they are least concerned about the environment. Its truly shocking to see so most of the well educated sections of our population are paying for something which is harmful for our earth. 

i think a bag made of degradable material is a better option. at least we'll be paying for saving our earth.