Would you pay for using plastic bags?

As some bags don’t disintegrate, they have crippling effect on the environment and marine life

ABU DHABI: Sulaiman Al Kindi, the director general of Information Technology for the Ministry of Education (MoE) has warned that Oman needs to upgrade its educational infrastructure, or risk getting left behind as the rest of the world progresses.

While technology does play a significant role in people’s lives today, schools and universities are yet to make full use of it, which could lead to students becoming disillusioned by the standards of education in the future. To bring about technological changes, the MoE signed an Education Transformation Framework with Microsoft last week.

“Students today need a teacher who will make them want to study and learn, and that will instill a belief of them actually needing teachers,” said Al Kindi, at the BETT Classroom of the Future conference, which looked at ways to employ technology to get the best out of students in classrooms in the Middle East and Africa. Staff Reporters MUSCAT: Residents should pay a fee for every plastic bag they use, a senior environment ministry official has said.

Badriya Al Shahi, General Inspector of Waste Management at the Ministry of Environment and Climate Affairs, believes that paying for plastic is exactly what the country needs.

“It’s very important to have this in Oman. It affects the environment and marine life. There are some bags which disintegrate and don’t impact the environment as much as the non-disintegrating ones, but the source of the problem still remains,” Al Shahi said.

She was speaking as Shura Council members debated whether to recommend the introduction of a fee system where residents would pay a fee for plastic bags but be reimbursed if they return them.

Al Shahi said Oman has an issue with littering and plastic ending up polluting beaches and coastal of damage is being done to oceans every year by the plastic waste, according to a United Nations Environment Programme report waters, affecting marine life.

“How do these bags get into marine life in the first place? Perhaps if we made individuals pay for using plastic, then there might be a reduction in the amount of waste, but the issue of littering will still remain.

“We should be limiting, re-using or recycling these bags. We are already seeing the impact of plastic waste on our environment,” she added.