A workshop on elimination of identified single use plastics was organised by the office of the East Jaintia Hills Deputy Commissioner in collaboration with the Meghalaya State Pollution Control Board (MSPCB) yesterday.
The workshop, organised with the aim of generating awareness to all concerned stakeholders, featured two sessions with the first session being organized for district heads representing different government departments and the second session being organized for traditional Heads, restaurant owners, local vendors and distributors of the district.
Additional Deputy Commissioner J. U Kharpuri, Additional Deputy Commissioner & Project Director, District Rural Development Agency (DRDA) Gautam Warjri, Assistant Commissioner F. Wann, Environmental Engineer of MSPCB Y. F Laloo, Assistant Environmental Engineer R.R Marak and others attended the workshop.
Kharpuri in her address emphasised on the importance of collective effort and community involvement in regards to elimination of identified single use plastics as the matter is of critical importance in as far as environment conservation efforts are concerned.
During the workshop, resource persons from MSPCB deliberated on different aspects concerning the issue including types of plastics, identified plastics banned including Petro Based Plastic Carry Bags less than 120 microns, Non-woven Plastic Carry Bags less than 60 GSM, plastic sheets or the like which are not an integral part of multilayered packaging and covers made of plastic sheets used for packaging and wrapping the commodity(including cling film/stretch film) less than 50 microns in thickness except where the thickness of such plastic sheets impairs the functionality of the product, plastic cutlery including plates, cup/glass, straws, stirrers, forks, knives, etc.
Other topics discussed during the one-day workshop include Extended Producer Responsibility, Identification-labelling/marking, Provision of Plastic Waste Management Rules, Responsibility of Local Bodies, etc.
