A one-day workshop on elimination of identified single use plastics was held at the office of the East Jaintia Hills Deputy Commissioner in Khliehriat today.
The workshop was organised by the district administration in collaboration with the Meghalaya State Pollution Control Board (MSPCB) which was attended by Additional Deputy Commissioner JU Kharpuri, district heads representing different government departments and executive magistrates of the district.
Resource persons from the MSPCB, Environmental Engineer, Y. F Laloo and Assistant Environmental Engineer, R.R Marak deliberated on different aspects concerning the issue of single use plastics 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 as also earbuds with plastic sticks, plastic sticks for balloons, candy sticks, wrapping or packaging films around sweet boxes, etc and Plastic or PVC banners less than 100 microns.
Discussions were also held with regards to alternatives to single use plastics which include paper products, cloth &jute bags, natural fibre cloth, arecanut leaves, banana leaves, bamboo &pulp products, ceramics etc.
Other topics discussed during the workshop include identification-labelling/marking, provision of Plastic Waste Management (PWM) Rules, issues and challenges of plastic waste management, etc.
It is worth mentioning here that a similar workshop was also organized by the district administration on November 11 which was attended by stakeholders including government officials, traditional heads, restaurant owners, local vendors and distributors.
