Solukhumbu, Aug 20, In keeping with the environmental protection and human health, the Khumbu Pasang Lhamu rural municipality has decided to completely ban the use of plastic bags and bottles.
The rural municipality endorsed the decision in line with the annual policy and programme for the fiscal year 2076/77 BS, informed Ganesh Ghimire, Chief Administrative Officer of Pasang Lhamu rural municipality.
The use of plastic below 30 microns and plastic bottles has been restricted in the Khumbu area, effective from 1 January 2020.
The rural municipality has also decided to distribute different five kinds of bags to the people of the region as a replacement of plastic. Lakpa Tshiri Sherpa, spokesperson of the rural municipality, shared that the new measure was mooted keeping in mind the negative effects of plastic in climate change, human health and mountainous ecosystem.
“As plastic is not perishable it has higher consequences on environment and human health. So, we took the blanket ban approach on plastic use”, he added. Importantly, a dozen of snow-capped mountains, including the world’s highest peak Mount Everest (Sagarmatha) are located in the rural municipality.
Annually more than 50,000 tourists visit the Khumbu region due to the mind-blowing beautiful landscape of Himalayas. Various stakeholders have suggested that no activity should be carried out to induce any negative effects on the ecology of the area.
“Works are in progress to construct the road in the rural municipality centre. We would take into consideration the environmental aspects while constructing and operating the road”, the spokesperson assured. Failure to protect environment would lead to catastrophic effect to tourism in the area, he said.
