Plastic Dushon Chokre Jibon O Prokriti

Reviewed by Dr Matiur Rahman

Bangladesh was the first country in the world to ban polythene shopping bags, in 2002, yet plastic still chokes its drains, rivers and farmland. Life and Nature in the Cycle of Plastic Pollution, published in February 2025 by the Dhaka-based Grambangla Unnayan Committee, sets out to explain that paradox. Headed by its executive director, A K M Maksud, a team of eight named authors has produced a Bangla-language book of thirty-five chapters that gives students, policymakers, businesses and ordinary citizens a comprehensive, readable account of how plastic is made, sold, thrown away and paid for.

The book's first strength is its order. It traces the material from Alexander Parkes and Leo Baekeland to the modern polymer industry, moves through production, trade and employment, then examines health effects, from microplastics in the body to the exposure of factory workers, before turning to damage to rivers, oceans, wildlife, farmland and the climate. The final third offers remedies.

Business readers will value the economic core. The authors put the global plastic goods market at about 570 billion dollars, with Bangladesh holding only a small fraction, through a domestic market of roughly forty thousand crore taka, over five thousand factories and about two hundred fifty exporters. The government's Plastic Industry Development Policy 2023 targets fifteen percent annual growth, twenty billion dollars in market size by 2030 and half a million new jobs by 2028. The book places these ambitions beside the environmental record.

That record is laid out clearly. Urban per capita consumption tripled from three kilograms in 2005 to nine in 2020, while Dhaka's daily plastic waste rose from 178 tonnes to 646. Only about thirty-seven percent of the capital's plastic waste is recycled, and nearly nine in ten tonnes nationwide are poorly managed, according to a study the authors cite. Globally, the book reports annual damage near 2.2 trillion dollars, nearly twice the value of the plastics trade itself. A sector celebrated for growth, the authors argue, is quietly exporting its costs to fisheries, public health, drainage and the climate.

The health and environment chapters are the most vivid. Plastic is linked to blocked drains, waterlogging and mosquito-borne disease in Dhaka, to polluted rivers such as the Buriganga, and to contaminated soil. The authors report that roughly one in three fish caught at sea carries plastic particles, and that a person may hold about fifty thousand particles by seventy.

Two chapters stand out for originality. The discussion of informal waste pickers, an estimated four hundred thousand people in Bangladesh who gather most of the plastic that is eventually recycled, is humane and sharp. These workers earn little and appear in no official register, yet the book rightly treats them as essential partners. The chapter on greenwashing is equally bold, arguing that clean-up technologies treat symptoms and let producers avoid responsibility, since two hundred clean-up vessels working for 130 years would remove only five percent of floating plastic.

The policy prescriptions are practical. The authors call for a ban on single-use plastics and polystyrene, mandatory deposit-return schemes, legally binding extended producer responsibility, transparent corporate disclosure of plastic volumes, and protection for waste workers. Dhaka's main airport already charges a refundable deposit on water bottles, proof that the idea can work locally. The book closes on an encouraging note: a United Nations Environment Programme analysis suggests plastic pollution could fall by eighty percent by 2040.

Its strongest side is its systems view. By following plastic from fossil feedstock to landfill, river and bloodstream, the book moves responsibility away from the careless consumer and towards producers, brands and regulators, who must carry the cost of what they sell. That shift, rare in public debate here, is argued with evidence rather than slogans, and the book keeps Bangladesh at the centre throughout.

No first edition is perfect. Much of the evidence comes from news reports and international studies rather than original surveys, a few figures vary between chapters, and the treaty chapter will date as negotiations move on. A fuller plan for helping small manufacturers adjust would also strengthen the case for phasing out single-use items.

Policymakers, industry associations, development agencies, environment journalists and university libraries should keep this book close at hand. It deserves a wide readership.

Life and Nature in the Cycle of Plastic Pollution is written by A K M Maksud with seven co-authors and published by GrambanglaUnnayan Committee. Copies are available from the publisher at House 93 (second floor), Road 1, Mohammadia Housing Society, Adabor, Mohammadpur, Dhaka 1207. Price: BDT 400, about US$ 10.