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15 more commonly used plastic items to be banned
Fifteen more commonly-used plastic items will soon be banned, the Ministry of Environment said — days after sachet packets, inflatable toys and cotton buds with plastic stems were prohibited.
Two more lists are being compiled for gazetting, a ministry source said, adding that the regulation was aimed at healthier consumerism. He declined to name the items.
From March 31 this year, Sri Lanka has prohibited the use of sachets containing 20ml or 20g and below (except for packing food and medicines); inflatable toys (except balloons, balls, water floating/pool toys and water sports gear); and cotton buds with plastic stems) except those used for medical/clinical treatment).
The development was met with mixed reactions. Sachets and cotton-buds were banned because they are single-use. During market research leading up to the ban, officials said they came across sachets containing as little as 2ml of shampoo. The most widely available, however, contained 6ml. The small size of the packets increased the likelihood of them littering particularly waterways, the ministry said.
But plastics manufacturers warned that the ban could be made redundant by companies simply producing, for example, sachets with content slightly above the specified value. “You’ll start seeing 21ml and 20.5mg sachets in the market now,” one trader said.
For instance, when high-density polyethylene lunch sheets were banned in 2017, producers started merely coating them in calcium carbonate to make them resemble disposable polyethylene, one manufacturer said. This led to an increase in the release of micro-plastics (fragments less than 5mm in length), which are more harmful as they are easily swallowed by fish which people then eat. Manufacturers resorted to this practice because it was twenty times more expensive to manufacture lunch sheets with proper disposable polyethylene.
“Sri Lanka has a waste management problem, not a plastics problem,” this manufacturer claimed, requesting anonymity. Plastic was an “extremely cheap” packaging option that would be too expensive to replace. Alternatives–including glass, steel and paper–impacted the environment.
But the Ministry of Environment hit back. It said multinational companies had been consulted well before this decision was made. “Any attempts to exploit loopholes will be seen as a breach of trust; the law will be amended to overcome these loopholes and enforce stricter regulations,” an official warned.
The Ministry is also revisiting the 2017 regulations to reform and tighten the gaps. The changes could cost producers money but the long-term benefits were worth it, the official said