Use of plastic and polythene to be prohibited in Sri Lanka

The government has decided to minimise the use of Polythene to reduce environmental damages caused by non persuadable waste Cabinet Spokesman Gayantha Karunathilake said.
 
He explained that a cabinet paper was submitted to provide approval for short term, Mid term activities recommended by a committee of intellectuals appointed. 

The key short term measures that will be taken by the government would be prohibition of Polythene to be used as decorations, implementing regulations for prohibiting of sale, use and production of polythene equal or lesser than 20 microns and prohibition of sale of implantation ,sales or production of lunch sheets.

In addition the government will allow to use Polythene containing lesser amount of microns for essential activities provided with the approval of Central environment authority. 

“ The government will prohibit sale implantation and production of containers, plates, cups spoons using polystyrene, sale of processed food in polythene containers and promoting use of paper, cloth or read bags while introducing as well as promoting degradable polythene” he said

“ The nine short term decisions will be implemented after the cabinet final approval is provided next week” he explained.

The government too has plans to impose concessions on importation taxes for machinery use to manufacture biologically degradable plastic while imposing cess tax 15 percent of plastic raw materials as well as a long term activity prohibition of use of recycled plastic.