158 kg of plastic wastes collected in Dhaka, Rangpur

Volunteers collected around 158 kg of single-use plastic waste during a brand audit conducted by the Environment and Social Development Organization (ESDO), a leading NGO of the country, in two major cities of the country—Dhaka and Rangpur in a day.

To identify the plastic polluters in Bangladesh, ESDO conducted the brand audit on September 30 engaging the school students and girls guide and boys scout, read a press release.

Brand audit is a part of a participatory science initiative, in which brands discovered in plastic waste are counted and recorded in order to identify companies that are contributing to plastic pollution.

Since 2018, every year this Brand Audit has been carried out by ESDO as a part of an attempt to identify the various brands that may be seen on plastic garbage.

This is the sixth time ESDO has conducted the brand audit in collaboration with Break Free From Plastic (BFFP), a global movement working to achieve a future free from plastic pollution.

In Dhaka, about 89 kg and in Rangpur about 67 kg single-use plastic waste was collected.

This year, the audit began in the Lalmatia neighbourhood of Dhaka City and proceeded through all of the Asad Gate, Aarong Circle, Sangsad Bhaban, Dhanmondi Govt Boys School, Dhanmondi 27, and ended at Lalmatia Housing Society School.

Again, in Rangpur, the DC Mor, Kachari Bazar, DC office, Shikkha Office, Townhall, and Shurovi Udyan were covered during the brand audit on the same day.

This involved the active participation of about 100 volunteers, 50 volunteers from Dhaka, which included students from the Lalmatia Housing Society School, Lalmatia Girls High School and College, and St. Joseph Higher Secondary School along with volunteers from Bangladesh Girls Guide Association.

Also in Rangpur, 50 volunteers from Rangpur participated in the audit which included students from Rangpur Zilla School and Rangpur Girls High School along with girls guide and boys scout from each school.

The volunteers and ESDO members gathered a significant amount of single-use plastic waste throughout the selected areas.

In the wastes, ESDO majorly identified 6 international and 14 local parent companies producing nearly 72 national and multinational brands including Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestlé, Unilever, Mondelez, Perfetti Van Melle, Bombay Sweets, Bashundhara Paper Mills Limited, Pran RFL Ltd, Square Foods and Beverage Ltd, Akij Group, Meghna Group of Industries, ACI Foods Ltd., and Acme Group.

The BFFP global campaign created this Brand Audit tool which was primarily carried out to raise public awareness and to provide producers with information on how to protect the environment from the negative effects of using single-use plastics.