Your shopping bag may just be plastic in disguise

BENGALURU: If you have been out shopping in the city the past few weeks, stores may have given you shopping bags made of a thin translucent material that looks and feels like cloth or paper. The porous material is sturdy, water-resistant and melts. Ever wondered why?

This is because these non-woven bags are made using polypropylene fibres, a plastic variant and is non-biodegradable.
"There is very little awareness that it is non bio-degradeable," said Kavitha Reddy, member of citizen group Hasirumithra, "Manufacturers position it as an ecofriendly alternative and as it looks like cloth, people fall for it."

Informed citizen groups have been spreading the word about the material and getting shops to shift to cloth and paper bags.

Some stores such as Subway, Reliance Fresh, Food World supermarkets and Grofers, have been using polypropylene bags even before the plastic ban. Beauty store Health and Glow is one of the chains that shifted to these after the plastic ban in the State. Shops and users are generally unaware of the composition of the material.

Rasa India, an organic restaurant in Indiranagar, started using these bags after cloth and paper-bags - for takeaways and deliveries - turned out to be expensive. The fact that these bags contain plastic came as a shock to them. "We thought it was a cloth bag," said the manager, adding, "At Rs 200 per kg, these bags cost only slightly higher than plastic. But paper bags are highly priced due to the increase in demand."

The manager said, "We do not want to use an environmentally harmful material at a natural store. But there are no viable alternatives out there."

With many shops opting for them, these disguised plastic bags have already started taking the place of plastic bags in street-corners and dumps, and as containers for trash.

B V Lalithamba, an active citizen volunteer in HSR Layout, said, "These bags are worse than plastic, as they cannot even be recycled."

However, Karnataka State Pollution Control Board Chairman Lakshman was unsure of whether the material was officially banned.

To clear the confusion, he said, "The board is in the process of putting together a list of alternatives that can be used.These are reviewed by an internal expert committee."

The need of the hour is awareness, say activists. "Instead of spending a fortune on posters to celebrate politicians' birthdays, giving away cloth or paper bags will send a strong message," said Lalithamba.

If the BBMP and KSPCB don't start acting on the ban, they may be left with a larger mess than when it was just plastics.