Overuse of plastic bags

Dear Sir,

The overuse of plastic bags poses a serious threat to our environment. Hypermarkets and shopping malls could play a key role in reducing the widespread use of plastic carriers.
In Qatar, the plastic bags used by many shops are of very thin quality. They don’t seem the biodegradable type.
Even when we buy a single item from a shop, it is put in a plastic bag before giving it to us. We have to find an urgent way to reduce their use. It is said that when we bury a plastic bag, it takes up to thousand years for it to rot as it decomposes quite slowly. Also, they block air and water circulation in the soil.
Steps to be considered immediately are:
- Only if the purchase is over two kilos, a plastic bag may be used.
- There should be a reward system for customers who use alternative methods to carry their purchase.
- Use of paper bags should be promoted.
- Awareness campaigns should be organised regularly to discourage the use of plastic bags.

Zarna P Bhatt, (e-mail address supplied)

Remember your building number

Dear Sir,

The emergency response times of the ambulance service or Civil Defence are excellent in Qatar.
In emergency cases even if you save a second, it could save a life.
Hence it is important for nationals, expatriate residents and tourists to remember the street and zone and number of the building they reside.
This helps the response team to reach the site in case of any emergency much faster, using Qatar’s GIS. This information can easily be found from the plate fixed on all buildings.

Vikas Amitabh, (Address supplied)

Don’t focus on negative news

Dear Sir,

The India pages in Gulf Times, it seems, focus on only negative news these days. We know that the current Indian government is achieving new heights in reforms and the entire world acknowledges this.
So it’s my request to editors of these pages that they should give a balanced coverage, giving also prominence to positive measures and reforms that the Indian government is undertaking.
During the last few decades, news from India often centred on corruption and its poor leadership, but now that the Modi government has almost eliminated the corruption scourge, newspapers must devote their space to such developments when reporting from that country and give due credit to leaders responsible for such initiatives.

Kamal Darmora, Sharma.kant@gmail.com

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