Ban plastic bags: Court

On a shopping binge? Make sure you carry along a bag, as the popular plastic bag is soon going to disappear from markets and local shopping centres. This is, if the Delhi High Court has its way.

On Thursday the court directed the Delhi government to issue a notification banning use of plastic bags of any micron in "main markets and local shopping centres" also apart from hotels, hospitals and malls where use of such bags are already forbidden.

A Bench of Justices T.S.Thakur and Siddharth Mridul gave the direction while disposing of a four year-old PIL filed by environment activist VK. Jain of NGO Tapas seeking a total ban on plastic bags. Jain contended they were choking drains and leading to collection of dirty water and consequently creating breeding grounds for several diseases. The PIL also said landfill sites packed with a mixture of non biodegradable and toxic waste contaminated water table.

The Bench has also made provisions to make use of plastic bags in other places expensive. This was by asking the government to fix the minimum thickness of plastic bags to 40 microns in place of currently stipulated 20 micron.

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