Source: www.businessgreen.com
INDIA, July 28, 2010: India’s largest state has become the latest to announce a complete state-wide ban on the use of plastic bags this week. From the beginning of August the manufacture, storage, import, sale and transport of plastic carry-bags will be illegal in Rajasthan. No shopkeeper, retailer, trader, hawker or vendor will be allowed to supply goods to consumers in bags.
In Mumbai in 2005 India experienced massive monsoon flooding partially as a result of drains blocked by plastic bags, resulting in over 1000 deaths. Similar flooding happened in 1988 and 1998 in Bangladesh, which led to the banning of plastic bags in 2002.
Cows – sacred in India – frequently asphyxiate after trying to eat the bags.