Taking a stand on plastic

Iam so pleased that Gulf News is addressing the issue of excess plastic here in the UAE (“The world is facing a plastic crisis”, Gulf News, April 14). Since January, I made my own personal pledge to reduce, reuse, recycle and refuse plastic. This has been a steep learning curve but there are some organisations here doing a great job to help clean up plastic waste across the UAE.

I have joined clean ups with the ABCD Beach Clean Up, Ras Al Khaimah recycling and Environment Agency Abu

Dhabi.

The articles were helpful and informative.

However, the article about UAE supermarkets was very one-sided. Most of the produce in all of the big supermarkets is covered in plastic, a lot of which cannot be recycled. There are a number of items we can only buy in plastic containers such as milk and yoghurt.

The only bags, which can be used, that are provided for fruit and vegetables, are plastic. At the checkout counter, customers are encouraged to take numerous plastic bags. There are no charges made for plastic bags or no discounts given for bringing your own bags. In fact, I often have to stop staff putting my stuff in plastic bags.

As far as ‘bio degradable plastic’ goes, this is just misleading. Many of these plastics give off poisonous gases when decomposing and if the bags are not disposed properly, they end up either being consumed by animals on land or by sea. It should be compulsory for all of these supermarkets to provide recycling bins outside their premises for plastic, aluminium, card, glass and tin cans. Why not carry on with this focus and have a pledge against plastic page every week? There are plenty of interesting projects happening in the UAE.

From Ms Alison Sriparam

UAE

■ Editor’s Note: The suggestions have been raised with the management and are being looked into.

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