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The country’s plastic recycling industry continues to be fraught with many barriers, including lack of awareness about plastic pollution, poor waste separation and unsupportive tax policies.

Despite Bangladesh recycling nearly 40 per cent of the plastic waste, far better than the global average of 9 per cent, serious plastic pollution inflicts deep impact on its environment and lives not only of human beings but all living beings also, according to environment experts and activists.

Stakeholders of plastic recycle industry observe that policy and other necessary support will significantly reduce the threat of plastic pollution with Bangladesh annually generating around 8,00,000 tonnes plastic waste, according to an estimate by development organisation Practical Action.

With a call to reduce plastic pollution, the government is celebrating World Environment Day today, instead of on June 5 set by the United Nations for observing the day, as this year it fell in the Eid-ul-Azha holiday. 

This year’s theme for the day—‘Beat plastic pollution’—particularly highlights the country’s miserable failure to address the use of single-use plastics although it was the world’s first country to ban  single-use plastics in 2002.

Successive governments’ failure to materialise the ban brought monstrous consequences— around 87,000 tonnes of single-use plastics, including polythene bags, are discarded annually with its 96 per cent ending up directly as waste, reveals ‘Plastic Tsunami: Bangladesh’s Maritime Ecosystem Under Siege’, a World Bank study report published in 2024.

On November 1 last year, the incumbent interim government rolled out a renewed effort to restrict the production, marketing, and use of polythene bags. The drive was invariably halted in just two weeks of its execution in face of fierce protests by workers of the plastic polythene bag factories in Old Dhaka.

Experts, however, suggest that plastic pollution in Bangladesh is more a waste mismanagement problem rather than bad consumption.

Yusuf Ashraf, a director at the Bangladesh Plastic Goods Manufacturers and Exporters Association, emphasises adopting of advanced recycling technology as they do in the industrially developed countries like Singapore.

Separation technology is highly important, he says, adding mixing plastics with other solid waste lowers the quality and recycling value.

‘City corporations and municipal councils, other waste management authorities, are typically unable to separate plastic from other waste,’ Yusuf told ¶¶Òõ¾«Æ·.

‘Extortion from waste transporters by the police and local strongmen is another big problem in plastic recycling,’ he also said.

Indiscriminate littering of household waste in polythene bags is a major driver of plastic pollution and monsoon-time urban flooding, as the plastics clog drainage systems, experts observe.

Professor Ijaz Hossain, dean of engineering at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, said that the country currently recycles around 40 per cent of its plastic waste, and the rest ended up in landfills and water bodies.

‘Yet, the remaining 60 per cent is mismanaged due to poor waste handling and public littering,’ he said.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s first ‘Global Plastics Outlook’ report revealed in 2022 that the global plastic waste mismanagement rate was 22 per cent and the recycling rate for plastic trash was 9 per cent.

Ijaz said that the country’s amount of mismanaged plastic waste surpass the global average. Apart from single-use polythene bags and PET bottles, which is polyethylene terephthalate, the most common type of polyester used to make bottles in which most beverages are put and marketed, a wide array of plastic products, including food wrappers, medicine foils, baby diapers, cotton buds, vehicle parts and styrofoam goods enter the waste stream daily.

Professor Ijaz stressed the need for bold public campaigns, strict anti-littering laws, implementation of extended producer responsibility and financial incentives for waste collectors to improve plastic recycling.

BPGMEA director Yusuf calls for friendly tax policies to support the recycling industry, saying that while recyclers are tax-exempted, businesses involved in sorting and purchasing recycled raw materials must pay value added tax.

Citing that some global garment brands ask for recycled plastic hangers, he said that the export of such items from Bangladesh faced difficulties.

He added that hangers made from recycled plastics are sometimes rejected by airport scanners due to iron content or sludge, while only imported recycling machines could produce iron or sludge-free plastic raw materials.

According to him, locally made recycling machines cannot produce quality products, while the imported machines cost up to $45,000.

‘Although the import duty on such machines is only 1 per cent, the duty on spare parts remains an unreasonable 15 per cent,’ Yusuf said.

He called for rational import policies, easy bank loans for importing efficient plastic recycling machines and duty waiver to incentivise the use of recycled plastics in manufacturing.

The 2025-26 budget has doubled the VAT on tableware, kitchenware, household items, hygiene products and similar goods from 7.5 per cent to 15 per cent at the production stage.

To promote eco-friendly recycling industries, the withholding tax on the supply of raw materials to these sectors has been reduced from 3 per cent to 1.5 per cent.

Although the ‘Solid Waste Management Rules 2021’ mandates city corporations and municipal authorities to ensure waste separation, the rule had yet to become binding for them due to their operational limitations, said Fahmida Khanom, additional secretary (environment wing) at the environment, forest and climate change ministry.

Entrepreneurs in plastic recycling can get soft loans from Bangladesh Bank’s green fund, she also notes, adding that Palli Karma-Sahayak Foundation’s partner organisations also provide loans for small-scale recyclers.