Organisation wants public support to petition govt

National

Non-governmental organisation Help PNG wants support from the public to petition the government to impose a ban on plastic bags.
Help PNG says plastic is a threat to the country’s environment and wild life.
Chief executive Frank Butler said the group was aiming to collect 100,000 signatures from the public before it could present its petition to Government.
It has so far collected 1300 signatures from two weeks of lobbying.
Butler said the damage done by plastics on both sea and land was immense.
He said the only way to address plastic pollution was to stop production of single-use polymer bags and increase of bio-degradable plastic.
Butler said that there were alternatives to single-use polymer plastic bag such as multi-use cotton bags, bilums (string bags) and baskets.
He said the Government needed to work closely with businesses to lower the import or use of plastics at point-of-sale. Butler said educating the general public on proper disposal of plastic rubbish in the long term would not work, because at the end of the day, convenience still dictated people’s behaviour.