The bagging industry is being overtaken by an environmentally unfriendly Chinese product that is destroying the livelihood of poor women in the short-term and stands poised to ruin the environment in the long-term.
A test conducted by the department of chemical engineering at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology in May found that non-woven shopping bags, unlike polythene bags, are not biodegradable.
But the government’s environmental watchdog apparently does not know about the new and destructive technology.
Non-woven bags are made from polythene powder imported, together with production equipment, from China.
“We have tested the non-woven shopping bags and found that they are not biodegradable. They are therefore harmful to the environment because they are non-decomposable like polythene,” Dr Kazi Bayzid Kabir, assistant professor of chemical engineering, said.
Although the government banned the manufacture, marketing and use of polythene shopping bags in 2002, they are still widely used across the country.
AKM Mizanur Rahman, director of monitoring and enforcement at the department of environment, told the Dhaka Tribune that he was not aware of the non-woven shopping bags.
When asked about them, he instead asked the Dhaka Tribune correspondent for the addresses of non-woven shopping bag companies so that his department could conduct a mobile court drive.
He added that his department had earlier conducted mobile court drives against the illegal use of polythene bags across the capital.
Traditionally, shopping bags were made of paper in scores of factories, often employing poor women, around the capital.
A seller of non-woven shopping bags told the Dhaka Tribune, asking not to be named, that demand for this type of bag is on the rise.
He sells the environmentally hazardous item in a market in the capital’s Gulistan area.
“We usually buy the non-woven material from the market as a single roll. We then cut the material into bags and heat the edges to join them together,” he explained.
