Making ban on single use plastic effective: Responsibility of all

The onus should primarily go to the shopper. This is how the ban on single use plastic should be implemented. Let the buyer or the shopper or the customer come with her bag and the goods thus bought can be carried in the said bag. In case the shopper forgot to bring her own bag, let her pay for the degradable bag provided by the shop. Already some shopping arcade have started offering jute or cloth bags to pack the goods with the customer having to cough up the cost of the said bag. This is one arrangement that should be championed. Encourage the use of paper bags, which were in vogue decades back before polythene bags started making their presence felt. Back then it was not uncommon for young boys and young girls to chip in their mite, make glue themselves, by boiling atta, collect the hard cardboard that come as the cover of exercise books, collect newspapers or buy them and then make the paper bags or chekhao as known in the local parlance and sell them to the shops. Kids get to make some dough as their pocket money and shop keepers can pass on the cost of the paper bags to the customers while calculating the costs of the items bought. Making jute or cloth carry bags mandatory for every shopper. These are but steps that may be taken up for the ban on single use plastic to be meaningful. The Sangai Express waited till October 5, to see what steps the Government would have taken up to ensure that single use plastic is no longer used. However the three days cushion, since October 2-the date the ban became effective, did not see any efforts made by the Government to ban the use of the said plastic carry bags effectively.
Banning single use plastic cannot be a one day affair. This is where one would like to see the Government take a proactive role and do something concrete. Reach out to the different NGOs, the leikai level clubs, the student bodies and see how to make the ban effective. If Sikkim has done it effectively with assistance from some NGOs why can’t the Government here take a leaf or two out of the mountain State and see what may be done ?  Unfortunate it is but apart from the Tamenglong DC and the Ukhrul DC, not much is heard of the other district heads going the extra way to ban single use plastics. The DC of Tamenglong district had even gone ahead and declared that the DC office complex at Tamenglong would be plastic free. Why can’t the other DCs follow suit and come out with such a standing order ? It is the half hearted approach to the issue at hand that is hard to digest. Involve all the sixty MLAs to ensure that the ban is enforced effectively in their home constituencies. Reach out to the schools and let school children be the flag bearers in not using single use plastic anymore. On the other hand promote the use of jute and cloth bags. Make it mandatory for every shopper to carry their own bags while marketing. Check the shops selling dressed fish, chicken, pork, mutton etc. This is a job which may be entrusted to the local clubs. The menace of single use plastic is not a joke and it would do good not to leave the job of championing a movement against it to individuals but make sure that it is the bounden duty of everyone and the Government should start this.