Environment and Social Development Organization-ESDO organized a virtual stakeholder and consultation meeting on “Initiating a Platform in Bangladesh Network on Banning Single-Use Plastic” to discuss this topic and the ways to ban SUP from the 12 coastal areas of Bangladesh. CSO members participated in the meeting as stakeholders and actively voiced their opinions on SUP. The major discussion topic at the meeting was not all types of plastic but single-use plastic products and how to gradually remove them from Bangladesh’s coastal areas.

The stakeholder and consultation meeting started with a welcoming message by ESDO’s Executive Director, Siddika Sultana. Jannatul Ferdous Jubly, Project Associate at ESDO, provided a brief presentation on the theme or subject area of the meeting. The open discussion and conclusion remark session was moderated by ESDO’s Secretary General, Dr. Shahriar Hossain. In the session, participants shared their ideas on how to create awareness of single-use plastic and discuss probable strategies that can ban single-use plastic from the coastal areas.

Environment and Social Development Organization is working relentlessly towards banning single-use plastic from Bangladesh. As a result, the High Court of Bangladesh based on a writ petition filed by BELA with the support of ESDO (with whom 10 CSOs have partnered) has ordered the authorities concerned to prepare the ground for banning single-use plastics in coastal areas, hotels, motels, and restaurants across the country in the 2021 year. Later in a hearing on 10th February 2021, the High Court of Bangladesh ordered the concerned authorities to phase out single-use plastic products by 31 December 2022 from the coastal area. A new medical waste management law will also be introduced in 2023, this law mandates the complete abolition of single-use plastic by 2030.