The plastic fiasco cost the country a Rs.25 million loss when the vegetable and fruit market came to a grinding standstill over the past two weeks plunging consumers to dire straits as housewives found their purse strings tied due to the unprecedented soaring prices.
The total wastage amounted to over 200,000 kilos of produce as housewives had to make do with alternate proteins to the usual greenery that is the doctor’s must for the table. Meanwhile, the president of the National Chamber of Exporters, Sarath de Silva pointed out that a 30 per cent loss could be averted by the use of crates unlike in the case of gunny bags due to mishandling.
While consumers, particularly the lowest strata of workers and middle class wage earners found the staggering prices of most vegetables going past Rs. 200 a kilo beyond their reach, the loss to the domestic market was Rs.20 million while exports suffered a Rs.5 million loss. It also brought harvesting to a standstill.
“Our leading exporters from the Middle East’s Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman and the Maldives panicked fearing the uprising by vendors and transporters would be an ongoing situation. But the Chambers of Exporters was successful in convincing them that it was only a temporary hiccup.
“It is the right way forward to cut down on waste as is the practice adhered to by exporters. Furthermore the cost of a crate is only Rs.8 as compared to the cost of a gunny which is Rs.30. Only it is somewhat difficult for our people to shed a practice which they have been used to over the years,” de Silva reasoned.
http://www.nation.lk/2011/12/18/news10.htm
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