Island-wide raids to arrest those producing polythene illegally

Island-wide operations will be carried out to arrest individuals and institutions which produce polythene illegally, Central Environmental Authority (CEA) announced.

Law will be strictly enforced against such individuals and institutions, the CEA Investigation Director N.S. Gamage said.

However a majority in the industry are manufacturing polythene in an eco-friendly manner, he added.

“It is a qualitative development to see a large number of manufacturers opting for the production of bio-degradable polythene and plastic products” he added.
 
The CEA on last year announced that tax concessions will be given to polythene manufacturers to import ingredients needed to manufacture polythene.

The polythene manufacturers will also be given 50% of the amount needed to buy machinery for the manufacture of polythene, from January the CEA said.

According to the industry, 80% of Sri Lanka’s annual polythene production is in HDPE (high-density polyethylene) considered to be stronger and low cost and the rest 20% in LDPE (low-density polyethylene). Due to its high strength HDPE is considered to be more harmful to environment than LDPE.

Annually Lankan HDPE manufacturers produce around 40 million kilos of HDPE polythene-which was banned from September 1.