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CEA-Police raids on polyethylene factories to ensure compliance
View(s):The Central Environment Authority (CEA) will start raids on the polythene industry to ensure compliance on its manufacture, as per government specifications, this week. Initially, the raids will be on large scale manufacturers of polythene, to implement the gazette notification of September 2017.
The directive was for all polythene manufacturers to produce Low Density Polyethylene (LDPE) bags of 20-microns or above gauge, and also to refrain from the manufacture of lunch sheets that are posing serious problems in their disposal.
Solid Waste Management Director General J.M.U. Indraratne said teams will be sent to polythene manufacturing industries to ensure compliance.
“We will start with the big manufacturers and scale down to medium and small industries,” he said. Around 600 CEA staff, along with trained Environment Police Officers who will be present at the raids, will be deployed across the country. Workshops and training programmes were conducted for the CEA staff and the environmental police personnel in this regard.
Random samples from production lines will be checked and suspicious specimens sent for laboratory testing. As most industries are based in the Western Province the major focus will be on Colombo and its suburbs, in co-ordination with the respective District Secretaries and Pradeshiya Sabhas.
Industries failing to meet requirements will be charged under the 23W of National Environmental Act No. 47 of 1980 gazette notification 1466/5, and shut down.
Violators will be fined Rs.10,000 or, 2 years imprisonment or, both, as the case requires. Two weeks prior to the gazette notification, the CEA had called on all the industries to register for the National Environment Protection Licences that would facilitate the future activities of the industry.
Initially, the raids will only be on polyethylene bags of less than 20 microns and on polythene lunch sheets. With time, other products including polystyrene and rigifoam will be checked. Prohibition of burning polythene and plastic in the open will also be in force.
He said there are plans to discourage industries from manufacturing LDPE products as they are non bio-degradable. In the relevant gazette notification, Polythene includes high and low density and polypropylene. The Polythene Manufacturing & Recyclers Association (PMRA), which has around 100 registered members, said the manufacturers are ready for the change.
PMRA President Anura Wijeratne said the industries have made the necessary changes to the machines and are also planning on the production of compostable lunch sheets. He said the CEA had given time till year end to finish the old stock. “We have a little more left and should be rid of it during this month,” he said. An estimated 1,000 industries are into polythene manufacture.