"Plastic has abundant disadvantages, endangering health," said Lashkir Hamid, head of the Health Committee at Sulaimani Municipality.
The decision, made by the mayor on Tuesday, was made nearly two and a half years after the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG)’s Health Ministry ordered the ban. Sulaimani was late in enforcing the December 2016 decision because of budget shortfalls during the financial crisis and the war against the Islamic State (ISIS), Hamid explained. Despite Sulaimani is not the only municipality that is tardy. Plastic bags are widely used at bakeries across the Kurdistan Region.
The health concern comes from taking steaming loaves fresh out of the oven and wrapping them in plastic. "Hot bread carried in such bags will directly be affected by the plastic,” said Hamid. The food “will react with the plastic, transferring its substances into the bread.”
Scientists agree that there is some “leaching” between plastic and food, but the area is under-researched.
A baker in Sulaimani commended the decision. "As a baker I understand that these plastics are too bad," said Falah Dawdo. Other countries like Iran use “paper and cloth,” he said. His business has not made the switch before now because they didn’t have an alternative, he claimed.
Residents of other municipalities are hoping to see the decision come into force in their cities too.
"We all know that plastic bags are dangerous as they are made of oil and gas substances," said Erbil bakery owner Rabar Faisal.
"It’s a very good decision," said Sardar Tahseen, a government civil servant. "Paper bags are better, sometimes when you keep samoons [yeast bread] in plastic bags, they turn to dough."
The owner of a factory making paper bags is very happy with the decision, arguing it is also better for the environment. "When we dump plastics on the ground after use, it will cause abundant damaged to the environment," said Barzi Jaafar.
"It takes almost 100 years for plastic bags to decompose," he said. "But it is not the case with paper. Paper is made of wood and could be recycled after using." And paper takes just two to six weeks to decompose, he added.
Most of Kurdistan Region’s waste ends up in unregulated landfills. Photo: Rudaw
Scientific research, however, indicates that paper in landfills takes years to decompose. With limited recycling options in the Kurdistan Region and no culture of recycling, the majority of waste ends up in landfills.
Some Turkish companies export plastic, paper and other kinds of waste from the Kurdistan Region, selling the recycled products back. The KRG has issued dozens of licenses for such exporters.
"Due to the lack of recycling companies, for several years we have been allowing the exportation of cardboard and plastic to Turkey. In doing so, we aim to keep the environment clean and turn these used items into revenue for those collecting them," Nawzad Adham, director general of trade at KRG's Ministry of Trade and Industry, said last year.
Only small amounts of plastic are recycled by Kurdish companies to make household items like pipes and bags.
Hawkar Ali, a geologist who has volunteered for many projects to clean up Kurdistan’s countryside, frequently littered with garbage by sloppy picnickers and people tossing out household waste, praised the switch to paper. Plastic is a material that "we need only for 15 minutes. So why not ban it?"
Reporting by Payam Sarbast and Sawen Saeed
