by IANS,
New Delhi : Plastic bag manufacturers of the city Thursday urged the Delhi High Court to allow them to make the product for sale in areas outside Delhi where it was not banned.
Arguing before a division bench of Chief Justice D. Murugesan and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw, the manufacturers said the city government had imposed a blanket ban on use and manufacture of plastic bag but they should be allowed to make and sell their product outside the state.
The All India Plastic Industries Association moved the high court challenging the Delhi government notification of Oct 23 that imposed a blanket ban on plastic bags from Nov 23, under which no person could manufacture, import, store, sell or transport any kind of plastic bag in the city.
Appearing for manufacturers, senior advocate Arvind Nigam told the high court that the ban would not end the environmental problems completely as packaged food products were still available in plastic covers.
The problem did not lie with manufacture but with the civic agencies’ failure to recycle the trashed plastic bags.
“The municipal authorities are not discharging their duty. If they would have been doing their duty, the ban would not have been enforced,” said Nigam, adding that “we are ready to do the job of civic agencies to recycle the plastic bags of less than 40 microns”.