Use of polythene bags is unchecked in Garhwa district, despite a ban imposed by Jharkhand Government. Garhwa Nagar Panchayat is yet to procure the instrument known as micrometer, which is required to measure the thickness of poly bags.
The Environment Ministry of Jharkhand has banned manufacture and use of plastic carry bags less than 40 microns in width from March 2011. However, the implementation of the order has been tardy, evident from the large number of polythene bags strewn in every major town and city. Hundreds of open garbage containers, placed at different places in the town by the Nagar Panchayat, are virtually an open invitation of death for the urban cattle.
The people throwing polythene bags, wrappers etc into these containers and the officials of the Nagar Panchayat perhaps do not know that they are directly or indirectly connected with the death of thousands of cows, who are swallowing such material as feed. It's an admitted fact that today 95 per cent of the cattle are being killed due to consumption of solid wastes, polythene bags and wrappers, especially in the urban areas.
The consumption of polythene bags, mostly by cows and milk producing animals like buffaloes, is slowly turning into a 'havoc' for the human beings who are consuming their milk. A serious threat is being posed to the health of the children, who are mainly depending on the milk feeding. “Plastic bags are choking the life out of India,” that is what The Ecologist magazine had said almost eight years ago. It further said, “Non-degradable plastic bags are poisoning and clogging up India's towns and cities. But, solutions are hard to come by largely due to the political influence of India's plastics industry.”
This may not be entirely true today as many States have imposed ban on plastic bags of less than 40 microns thickness with varying success. These bags are used in profusion by everybody for carrying edible and non-edible materials and have since become a nuisance wherever the authorities have failed to act. These fly around in the wind, are present in garbage dumps and drains, which these choke often resulting in floods causing loss of life and property. Environment Conservation Act under Section 16 says that who will come under the provision awarded five years imprisonment or one lakh fine. But nothing has been implemented till now.
When contacted to the Chairman of Nagar Panchayat Pinki Keshari said that Nagar Panchayat is yet to procure the instrument known as micrometer, which is required to measure the thickness of poly bags. She also not send the demand to buy micrometer. She appealed to the peoples to not use the polythene bags but no result is come up yet.