“I have no job, no job offers and seven hungry children. What will I do?” Shahida Akhtar asks, staring out at the narrow lane in front of her house in Keraniganj upazila, thirty minutes from Dhaka.
She recalls hectic days last year making paper shopping bags.
But now that the paper bag industry has slumped in the face of competition from a risky plastic alternative, she has little to do with her time and no source of income.
Mechanised shopping bag manufacturers using a non-biodegradable form of plastic are shutting down traditional shopping bag makers and putting its labourers, many of them poor women, out of work.
Many small factories have been shuttered as demand for old-style paper bags has dwindled. Some stores are full to the brim with paper shopping bags nobody wants to buy.
Shahida’s dilemma is shared by hundreds of others, who like her, have lost their jobs.
There are nearly 300 factories in Keraniganj alone where around 200,000 people work in the industry - many have already closed.
Abul Hossain, proprietor of Nayon Products which makes paper shopping bags, said: “From 200,000 bags a month, our production has fallen to 6,000. Last year we employed 300 women. This year we have just 4 workers.”