Don’t authorities care?Plastic bags are dangerous [Archives:2004/785/Health]

archive
October 28 2004

Ismail Al-Ghabiri
For more than five years, the Ministry of Commerce, Supply and Industry has issued a decree stopping the manufacture and use of plastic bags in its present thickness after it has been proved by the medical analysis that its usage causes lot of serious diseases, particularly when using plastic bags for packing cooked food or fresh foodstuffs, vegetables, fruits, and water.
This ministry has allowed a limited period, not exceeding two months, for the producers to change their line of fabrication for producing some other materials for the community's use and benefit.
But, despite the elapse of a long time, the production of such bags still goes on with its same non-acceptable cheated specifications to be used by people for putting in them foodstuff.
Factories producing those plastic are not observing abiding by the instructions of the ministry regarding specification of those bags despite the danger they pose to the public health.
The whole issue seems as if it is not of concern for the authorities entrusted with following up implementation of the ministry's instructions.
As the Ministries of Commerce and Supply and the Industry are indivisible part of the institutional structure of the state, it is unclear why they ignore the decision of carrying out their own instructions, which are meant for protection of the community's health and staving off the dangers against it.
It is still a dubious secret to know the side, which is beneficiary from hindering the application of those instructions despite of their significance for human health in addition to their humanitarian characteristic.
It could be wondered whether the people health has become a question of compromise leading to overlooking the danger of such a magnitude.
The other question is why the authorities concerned with the people health do not bear the duty of explaining to the people the danger of using such plastic bags and make them aware of its consequences. Has the people's health become so insignificant in the thinking and view of those authorities?
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[archive-e:785-v:13-y:2004-d:2004-10-28-p:health]