The ban on plastic in Thrissur city still remains on paper.

The Thrissur Corporation had imposed a blanket ban on manufacture, sale, storage and use of plastic carry bags on July 1, 2011, and had warned the violators of stiff penalty including cancellation of licence. The initiative was part of the civic body’s efforts to free the city of plastic.

However, due to slack enforcement and lack of cost-effective alternatives, traders across the city openly flout the ban.

Most shops in the city hand out plastic carry bags free of charge. Plastic waste discarded in dumping yards is not cleared by the corporation. There is also no system in place to recycle the waste.

According to health officials of the corporation shortage of staff and resistance from traders and general public have come in the way of enforcing the ban.

However they claimed that most of the shopping centres and retail chains had stopped handing over goods in plastic bags to customers.

Traders insist that they continue to use plastic bags because the civic body has failed to provide a cost-effective alternative.

The paper bags and jute bags are expensive and there is also stiff resistance against use of polypropylene bags.

According to experts, polypropylene that comes under low-density polyethylene will change the structure of the soil itself. As it looks like cloth animals may consume it. Segregation of polypropylene is more difficult than plastics.

Meanwhile, garbage continues to be dumped in plastic carry bags in the city. As it has been more than a year since the dumping of the city’s garbage at Lalur had been stopped, accumulated filth and plastic waste dot the roads of Thrissur.

The Corporation seems to have fallen short of ideas to find an alternative. To resolve the growing waste management problem, the civic body has resorted to burning of garbage lying on streets.

Sanitation workers roaming around the city with kerosene cans and burning garbage heaped at street corners is a regular sight at night in the city.

Burning of garbage leads to emission of carbon monoxide along with carbon dioxide, say environmentalists. Burning of plastics and PVC produces many produce toxic fumes, including dioxin, which causes cancer, they noted.

Though the corporation had plans to rope in ragpickers to collect plastics from households, there was no initiative to implement the project.