The tourists visiting Cox’s Bazar now will come across a unique, 38-foot long and 14-feet wide monster made out of plastic waste, standing at the sea beach with the message of how plastic pollution reached such an intimidating scale around them. Sixteen volunteers worked for seven days to bring the statue to life designed by Abir Karmakar, a former student of the Fine Arts department of Dhaka University under an anti-plastic initiative of the Bidyanondo Foundation. The huge monster placed at Sugandha Point of the beach attracted a lot of attention from locals and visiting tourists already. Plastic waste like chips packets, water bottles, broken buckets, chairs, and balls was seen used in creating the awareness-raising monster. Read: Beach photographer stabbed to death in Cox's Bazar Nadira Kanon, a tourist from Dhaka said, “It’s great to see such an initiative taken in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar as we should all be aware to stop the plastic monster. We have to make people see that plastic waste is actually wreaking havoc on the oceans.” Abir Karmakar, who planned the statu, said 20 sacks of plastic waste collected from Cox’s Bazar and Saint Martin’s island have been used to build this monster. Eight volunteers including him and four carpenters worked hard for the last seven days to build this monster to raise awareness among people against plastic waste and its repercussions, he said. The district administration along with Bidyanondo Foundation is trying to give a message that the accumulated plastic waste and its pollution is turning into a monster day by day and posing a great risk for lives and the environment, said Cox’s Bazar Deputy Commissioner Muhammad Shaheen Imran. He said the statue will be kept there on the beach for the next two months as part of the awareness campaign. Bidyanondo Foundation organisers said a team of their volunteers had been campaigning to collect plastic waste at Saint Martin’s Island for the last few days. Read: Cox's Bazar: Football fan falls to death while hanging Brazil flag On Tuesday, the first day of the collection campaign locals brought four Metric Tons of plastic waste which was brought by 400 local families at the ‘Plastic Exchange Store’ set up by the organisers. In exchange, they took rice, pulse, oil, sugar, salt, clothes and other essentials worth Tk 4,20,000, said the organisers. Each family will get the chance to exchange plastic waste for essential commodities once every month from this unique store, they said.

Australia's national science agency has made a commitment to help reduce the country's plastic waste by 80 percent over 10 years. The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) on Sunday announced a further investment in its Ending Plastic Waste Mission. The initiative will receive 50 million Australian dollars (37.1 million U.S. dollars) in funding from the CSIRO, industry, governments and universities to develop cutting-edge innovations for how Australia makes, uses, recycles and disposes of plastics. Australians currently use 1 million tonnes of single use plastic every year, only 12 percent of which is recycled. READ: Plastic waste increases from 178 tons per day in 2005 to 646 tons in 2020 in Dhaka Larry Marshall, chief executive of the CSIRO, said that without significant action the plastic waste problem would continue to grow. "The Ending Plastic Waste Mission will bring together the whole innovation system, from government, industry and academia to turn science into solutions that will benefit the environment and create economic opportunities for Australia," he said in a media release. "By turning plastic waste into a renewable resource, the Mission will deliver collaborative scientific and manufacturing capabilities to drive new technologies across the entire plastics supply chain and grow Australia's circular economy." The CSIRO launched its "Team Australia" missions project in August 2020 with an aim of using major scientific and collaborative research initiatives to solve the country's biggest challenges including plastic waste, climate change uncertainty, pandemics and natural disasters. 

Sustainable management of plastic waste and controlling the increasing trend of pollution is very crucial to ensure green growth for Bangladesh, said the World Bank.   A new report of the World Bank said the country’s annual per capita plastic consumption in urban areas tripled to 9.0 kg in 2020 from 3.0 kg in 2005. With rapid growth and urbanization, Bangladesh faced a sharp increase in both plastic use and pollution. The COVID-19 pandemic has escalated the problem of mismanaged plastic waste,” said Dandan Chen, World Bank Acting Country Director for Bangladesh. Also read: Global deal on plastic pollution is urgent: Speakers  “Going forward, sustainable plastic management—from designing a product, to minimizing plastic use, to recycling—will be critical to ensure green growth for the country. We commend the government’s commitment to implement a National Action Plan to beat plastic pollution," she said. The ‘Towards a Multisectoral Action Plan for Sustainable Plastic Management in Bangladesh’ report provides a blueprint for managing plastic pollution over the short term (2022–2023), medium-term (2024–2026), and long-term (2027–2030), which will require an integrated cross-sectoral approach. Bangladesh’s National Action Plan for Sustainable Plastic Management sets a target of recycling 50 percent of plastics by 2025, phasing out targeted single-use plastic by 90 percent by 2026, and reducing plastic waste generation by 30 percent by 2030 from 2020/21 baseline. The plan, which is aligned with the 8th Five-year plan, was based on needs collectively identified by the Ministry of Environment, Forests, and Climate Change, Department of Environment, private sector, and other stakeholders. The Action Plan focuses on circular use of plastic based on a 3R strategy: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. A circular economy will help create new value chains, green skills, employment, and innovative products while addressing social and environmental challenges. The country’s annual per capita plastic consumption in urban areas tripled to 9.0 kg in 2020 from 3.0 kg in 2005. Dhaka’s annual per capita consumption of plastic is 22.5 kg, significantly higher than the national average. Also read: Government to implement an action plan for sustainable plastic management: Environment Minister COVID 19 pandemic has worsened plastic pollution, especially from single-use plastic used in masks, gloves, and Personal Protective Equipment. A large part of the plastic waste is dumped in water bodies and rivers, the report said. Bangladesh progressively took steps in curbing plastic pollution, with varied outcomes: in 2002, Bangladesh was the world’s first country to ban plastic shopping bags. However, after some time, plastic pollution increased again. The Jute Packaging Act 2010 for six essential items (paddy, rice, wheat, maize, fertilizer, sugar) promoted an alternative to plastic packaging. In 2020, the High Court directed concerned authorities to ban Single-Use Plastic in coastal areas and all hotels and motels across the country. “To implement the National Action Plan focusing on 3R strategy, commitment from all stakeholders, including citizens, the government, private sector, development partners, and citizens will be important,” said Eun Joo Allison Yi, World Bank Senior Environment Specialist, and co-author of the report. To implement the action plan, the report identifies policy reforms, technologies, infrastructures, investment, and institutional capacity-building needs. The report was prepared in collaboration with the Department of Environment and PROBLUE, a multi-donor trust fund.

Plastic is choking Bangladesh's drains, canals, and rivers. Around 1,700 tonnes of plastic waste is produced in the country every day and only half of it is recycled, according to the Department of Environment. In Dhaka city alone, plastic waste has gone up more than 3.5 times from 178 tonnes per day in 2005 to 646 tonnes per day in 2020. Of that 646 tonnes, only 37 per cent is recycled, and mostly by the informal sector, according to the World Bank.  It is almost impossible to imagine a day without any use of plastic. Clogged drains, bags fluttering in the wind, masses of plastic piled in dumps, and road corners have become an everyday reality in Bangladesh.

Plastic waste has gone up from 178 tons per day in 2005 to 646 tons per day in 2020 in Dhaka city alone, Mercy Tembon, World Bank Country Director for Bangladesh and Bhutan, has said. Tembon said this at a virtual workshop jointly organized by the World Bank and the Department of Environment on Wednesday. World Bank announced the winners of the Plastic Circularity Innovation Challenge at the event. Also Read: Keep track of your plastic wastes online  The competition sought innovative solutions to combat plastic pollution in Bangladesh. “Addressing plastic pollution is a critical development agenda for ensuring green and smart growth,” said Tembon. The contest asked for innovative solutions in two categories: i) collection/sorting, recycling of low-valued plastics and single use plastics and ii) digital technology solutions in coping with plastic pollution such as mobile apps. Read Fighting plastic pollution: EcoVia working to transform RMG waste The three-member panel of judges included Ahsan Khan Chowdhury, Chairman and CEO of PRAN-RFL; Cyrill Gutsch, CEO, Parley for the Oceans, and Marina Tabassum, Founder and Principal Architect of Marina Tabassum Architects. The short-listed teams made presentations today virtually in presence of the judges. Since 2019, the World Bank has partnered with the Department of Environment (DoE) and the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) to organize a series of events on “Sustainable Management of Plastic to Leverage Circular Economy and Achieve SDG in Bangladesh.” This was the fourth event in the series. “The Government of Bangladesh is committed to reduce pollution and ensure sustainable green growth. We are taking a range of actions to curb pollution and improve waste management,” said Mr. Ziaul Hasan, Secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change. “It is encouraging to see that our youth are so well plugged into the issue and bringing pragmatic solution to beat plastic pollution.” Also Read: BUILD wants to assist govt in promoting recycling, sustainable business practices Further, to raise awareness on plastic pollution among school children, the event also introduced an animated video. The contest was launched in November 2020 and funded by PROBLUE. The winners received 80,000 BDT each. The winners and winning proposals are (in alphabetical order): Team Amity: Formed by Farhana Haque, majoring in Civil Engineering and Sadman Fakid, majoring in Chemical Engineering – from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET). Their solution to #BeatPlasticPollution is an integrated management of plastic wastes where they present a micro-credit business model addressing unemployment and involving multi-modal approach to plastic waste collection, sorting and recycling. Read Solid waste management essential to save Cox's Bazar ... Team Blues: Comprised by Mahedy Hasan, Sakib Asrar, and Tanvirul Azim, three Electrical and Electronics Engineering students from North South University. They built an extremely budget-friendly floating-aquatic-waste-cleaning robot made up of readily available cheap materials and with minimal labor. This bot is made of floatable material that will hover on the water to collect the waste materials resulting in cleaning our water bodies. Read A Bangladesh startup that aims at saving the world! Team Garbageman: Garbageman Ltd. is an organization founded by Fahim Uddin Shuvo. He presented a ‘Recycling Platform,’ a free incentive-based digital way for environmentally conscious individuals, households, restaurants, and organizations who will donate recyclable waste for recycling and upcycling purpose. The platform will formalize the supply chain of recyclables and create opportunities for green jobs, and conduct research and development to create scope to recycle and upcycle waste. Read Bangladeshis lose over 1.8 years of lifespan to air pollution ... Team Green Beans: Comprised of Mohammad Rayed and Asma Arisham, students of Computer Science and Engineering at North South University, and Mahdi Ahmed, a student of Information and Communication Technology at Bangladesh University of Professionals (BUP). The team came up with the model ‘Bottle Economy,’ a platform using USSD, a decade-old mobile communication protocol to connect the poor people and scavengers with local recyclers, allowing them to sell plastic wastes directly while limiting the role of intermediaries. It encourages them to recycle plastics by providing monetary incentives. Read Plastic face masks, hand sanitizer bottles trigger pollution

A web application to track plastic wastes was launched in Bangladesh recently by ‘Dataful’, a data journalism initiative.