I recently went through this article and found it quite relevant.


Housewives love it and shoppers find it indispensable but environmentalists say the ubiquitous polythene carry bag must go. At an environmental conference here this month, Nepal's junior minister for population and environment, Bhakta Bahadur Balayar, declared his ministry's willingness to go with the environmentalists. "MOPE (acronym for the ministry) is all set to ban polythene bags, especially the black ones (made from recycled polythene)," the minister said. "We are drafting a bill to be introduced in the next parliamentary session." Nepali environmentalists are jubilant. They want to see the return of biodegradable packaging material, like jute, cloth and paper bags -- widely used before the takeover by plastic. "There is more harm than benefit by the use of plastics," says a new report by the Nepal Forum of Environmental Journalists (NEFEJ), which is leading the war against plastic carry bags. According to the report, plastic is not biodegradable and releases harmful dioxin into the air. Besides, people who work in plastic industries are at a greater risk for cancer and other diseases, it said. Discarded plastic is an urban nightmare. Dr. Toran Sharma, who works for the Nepal Environmental and Scientific Services (NESS), says discarded plastic bags are a notorious clogger of sewage lines and drains. "Because it doesn't rot and turn into compost, plastic bags discarded in fields decrease the productivity of arable land," Sharma said. The most dangerous feature of plastic is its toxicity with black colored polythene bags the worst offenders, say environmentalists. Several cities in neighboring India have banned black plastic bags because of their toxicity. In fact, entire Indian states like Himachal Pradesh and Sikkim, which border Nepal and depend on tourism for revenue, strictly enforce bans on plastic bags and even fine shopkeepers if any are found on their premises. In Bangladesh there have been a chorus of demands for a complete ban on plastic bags ever since they contributed to the severity of floods in Dhaka two years ago by clogging drains. Colored plastic bags contain harmful toxic metals like chromium and copper which can cause allergies according to activists in India who prevailed on their environment ministry to encourage the use of virgin transparent plastic. Activism in favor of banning plastic bags has not gone down well with dozens of plastic industries which recycle them and provide employment to hundreds of poor people who collect them for a living. Currently there are 179 plastic factories operating in the towns of Nepal engaged in turning plastic bags into tubs, buckets, containers and more polythene bags. The industry is a source of revenue for the government. Even so, towns like Hetauda, south of Kathmandu, are ready to ban plastic bags and have been discouraging their use. Hetauda municipality officials claim there has been notable improvement in the environment since the policy was announced last year. "Pollution free town is the citizen's first desire," says Hetauda's mayor Dormani Paudel. "It is towards the implementation of this policy that we are being supported by all sectors of society, even industrialists." But plastic manufacturers who raised an outcry when Hetauda went plastic bag-free last year, are battling on impervious to environmental issues. "The plastic industry is an inalienable part of Nepal's economic development effort," says Kabindra Bahadur Shrestha, president of the Association and owner of Gem Plastics Industries, the largest manufacturer in the town. "Allegations that plastic is ruining the environment are baseless. The increasing pollution problem is more a result of sloppy management of garbage removal than the plastic industry," he insists. Shrestha does not deny that plastic is clogging drainage pipes but insists that there is more a perception of problems than actual problems. The use of plastic in urban areas has been increasing steadily according to a recent survey by the Kathmandu Metropolitan City Corporation, the local elected body that runs the capital city. Current consumption of plastic is so high in Nepal that the average urbanite is estimated to use 22.5 grams of plastic in a single day, the study calculated. Says Keshab Sthapit, Kathmandu's mayor: "Of all the garbage that accumulates in the city in a single day, over 5 percent consists of plastic bags." Earlier, the problem was dealt with by recycling. Discarded plastic bags were picked up rag pickers and migrant workers from the streets of the capital and sold to plastic industries. The city corporation also bought them up as landfill material. But these days, intense market competition in the plastic industry and better technology have led to ever-thinner bags which are uneconomical to recycle. Shrestha, the trade association president, says that most shopping plastic bags these days are 5 microns in thickness or less and therefore have no recycling value. "It will do a world of good if manufacturers are ordered to manufacture bags which are at least 15 microns in thickness," Shrestha said. "That will rejuvenate the re-cycling of discarded plastic and street pickers could get a fair price for their efforts," he argued. But MOPE is unwilling to buy such arguments and wants to see the last of the bags, irrespective of size, shape and color. MOPE officials point out that alternative paper and jute bags, can easily be manufactured and job losses resulting from a ban on plastic made up by new ones in the paper and jute industries.

The World is changing so rapidly that it has become very difficult for our mother earth to maintain a balance between its resources and the consumers. People have become highly indifferent to this change and are busy enjoying their life and gathering the so called luxuries in physical forms. Everyone is concerned just for one's own life. We never think of what will happen if the Pollution keeps on increasing with the same pace or the natural resources get over.
we are not at all worried about the people who are suffering because of our selfish nature. Its a far cry for us to think of the future generations.
This is the time now that we need to wake up and awake others as well.