Manipur officials urge immediate ban on single-use plastics amid waste crisis

Imphal, April 5: Manipur will be choked unless the use of single-use plastic is banned.

The Principal Secretary of the Municipal Administration, Housing and Urban Development (MAHUD), RK Dinesh, said this during a consultation workshop on plastic waste management and ban on single-use plastic items in Imphal on Friday.

The Directorate of Environment and Climate Change organised the workshop in collaboration with MAHUD and Manipur Pollution Control Board (MPCB).

"We have no option but to ban plastics or use other alternatives," said Dinesh. "Ultimately plastic waste will come to our landfill area as we do not have proper systems of recycling waste to energy or industrial composting."

The existing plant (waste-to-energy) which was established some time back on an experimental basis at Lamdeng on the outskirts of Imphal, is also not successful.

"We found the maximum amount of plastics in the ongoing drive (by the concerned officials of the different departments) in and around Imphal," he added.

Sharing similar sentiments, Principal Secretary of Forest, Environment and Climate Change Arun Kumar Sinha said that plastics are a big health hazard in the State.

"In the recent flood in Manipur, we saw full plastic bottles choking the waterways, which ultimately connect with the Loktak Lake," he said.

Expressing the need to use alternatives in place of plastics, Sinha also appealed to the media to play its role in banning SUPs.