◊ By SAAPH

Non-woven bags look and feel like cloth—perhaps the reason they have managed to quickly infiltrate the Indian market. Even today, the layman thinks she is being handed over an ‘eco-friendly’ option to polythene, when given a non-woven bag. This could, however, not be further from the truth.

Below are some hard truths about these insidious bags that are actually plastic masquerading as cloth:

1. Non-woven bags are made of Polypropylene, a kind of plastic. They have been declared as plastic in the Uttar Pradesh Plastic and Other Non-Biodegradable Garbage Act 2000. As per the UP Plastic Ban, use of all types of plastic carry bags is banned.
2. A non-woven bag is as non eco-friendly, non biodegradable, and hazardous to health and the environment as plastic.
3. Due to the misconceptions spawned by the plastic industry in order to hoodwink the public into believing these bags are made of cloth, along with lack of public awareness, and apathy of authorities, non-woven bags have flooded the Indian markets and have replaced polythene all over the country.
4. Being voluminous and heavy, and not easily recyclable, these bags contribute heavily to gargantuan landfills, even after wet waste has been sorted.

Members of SAAPH during an awareness drive on non-woven bags

A nukkad natak (street play) by children from Noida to raise awareness against non-woven bags

Therefore, the ban on plastic must be synonymous with the ban on non-woven bags. We cannot idly wait for new regulations to kick in. We must, at the individual level, refuse to accept non-woven bags, as well as, educate others on the issue.

The next time you’re handed a non-woven bag at a store or restaurant, please decline and carry your own cloth bag instead.

SAAPH (Sustainable Alternatives Awareness Against Plastic & Household Waste) is a citizens’ awareness initiative by concerned residents of Arun Vihar, Noida.