A booth to trade plastic

Numerous excited locals standing in a queue in front of a booth, holding used plastic bottles, old containers, and worn-out polybags -- this is what this correspondent saw when he first arrived at the Moulvibazar municipality on Sunday evening.

To prevent environmental degradation and ensure the proper collection and disposal of non-biodegradable wastes, the Moulvibazar municipality authorities have introduced a new service -- a plastic trading booth -- on their office premises.

Active since Sunday, the booth, operational between 3:00 and 7:00pm on Sundays, buys plastic from locals. 

"Anyone can sell their plastic bottles and polythene there. We pay them Tk 50 per kilo," informed Fazlur Rahman, the municipality's mayor.

"Plastic pollution has been destroying our soils for years. We wanted to stop its unplanned disposal and came up with this solution. The main purpose of our new initiative is to encourage people to preserve their used plastic bottles and polythene and to sell them in a designated place," he said.

The authorities plan to recycle the waste and generate biogas from it after a significant quantity is deposited, the mayor further informed.

"After hearing about the booth, I started collecting polythene bags from the streets. So far, I have piled up four sacks and came to the booth to sell them," said Shamim Miah, a resident of the district headquarters.

Pinaki Basfor of the town's Club area referred to the process as a good source of income.

"I collected seven kilos of plastic materials from the streets and nearby bushes, which I sold for Tk 350," he said.

Mukta Basfor, a cleaning staff member of the municipality, believes this initiative will make their job easier as more residents will now collect plastics from the roads instead of throwing them away carelessly.

"The streets will be cleaner now," he said.

Environmentalist ASM Saleh Sohel, a member of Bangladesh Paribesh Andolon, said, "This project should be implemented across all municipalities."