Since 2005, the average per capita consumption of plastic has increased from 3 kg per year to 9 kg per year in 2020. In Dhaka alone, the average consumption of plastic has more than doubled between 2005 and 2020. Single-use plastics which include clear plastic wraps, coffee cups and lids, utensils, straws, coffee stirrers, lids, bottles and polythene bags are probably the major cause of plastic pollution on the urban streets of Bangladesh.
As plastic pollution silently spreads across the country’s urban streets, it is slowly damaging the environment, turning Dhaka’s canals into dumping zones, and choking drainage systems, making urban areas of Bangladesh There is a flood coming. More worryingly, plastic threatens marine biodiversity as it causes indigestion, entanglement and suffocation of organisms. This problem has permeated the food chain as humans are now eating fish containing plastic particles, posing a significant risk to their health. For Bangladesh, the increasing prevalence of microplastic-contaminated fish could make marine organisms unsuitable for human consumption. This could have economic consequences in the long run, if Bangladesh cannot meet the sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) requirements of partner countries, the volume of fish exports could be affected, potentially leading to trade disruption.
Additionally, the expense of cleanup costs is a burden on local governments and municipalities. It is common to see that most of the municipal budget in Bangladesh is spent on covering the cost of sanitation. The estimated clean-up cost of plastic waste to the government in 2020 was equivalent to 30 per cent of the total revised budget of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) for 2020.
International pressure is growing to tackle plastic waste. On 2 June 2023, the second round of negotiations for a UN global treaty to end plastic pollution took place in Paris. UN member states agreed to create a ‘zero draft’ ahead of the next round of talks to be held in Kenya in November this year.