Finance ministry bans import of plastic bags

KABUL (Pajhwok): The Ministry of Finance (MoF) on Tuesday banned the import of any kind of plastic bags and asked the business community to show compliance to the order.

On its Twitter handle, the MoF said for the sake of environmental protection and air pollution prevention the import of plastic bags are fully banned.

According to the ministry the import of 3,000 bundles of plastic bags — each bundle weighting 25 kilograms — is prevented at Kandahar Custom Department.

Eng. Tofan Jibran, deputy head of the Environmental Control and Pollution Management, told Pajhwok Afghan News: “This year the Environmental Protection Day is titled under the fight against plastic pollution and this because we are trying bring down the use of plastic bags and disposable items which created environmental problems.”

He said the use of plastic items was a huge setback for the environmental protection because plastic took more than 500 years to be neutralized and return to the nature.

He said according to research one of the main cause of growing cancer was the use of plastic items because different types of chemicals are used in its composition.

The move comes that medical experts often warned against the use of plastic bags and frequently demanded ban on its use. Officials in the past regime also demanded ban on the import of plastic bags.

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