The Ministry of Environment has taken steps to ban the production and distribution of polythene lunch sheets in Sri Lanka from August 01. Accordingly, only biodegradable lunch sheets can be used for food wrapping after August 01, so only those lunch sheets can be manufactured, distributed and sold in factories in the country.
Therefore, at present there are 08 companies in our country that manufacture biodegradable lunch sheets and the Minister of Environment Mahinda Amaraweera had extensive discussions with its representatives in this regard yesterday (15).
Discussions focused on the issues facing the companies concerned. The industrialists pointed out that they had to bear the high cost of importing the raw materials needed to produce biodegrdable lunch sheets. They claim that it costs three times more to produce these perishable lunch sheets than lunch sheets made of polythene. They also demanded tax relief for this purpose.
However, the Minister instructed the Central Environmental Authority to submit a report to the Minister to inform the Cabinet on their problems immediately.
The Minister also said that if it is reported that companies that obtain licenses for the production of biodegradable lunch sheets have produced polythene lunch sheets, the licenses issued to those companies will be revoked immediately in the first instance. Here are a few more decisions.
