These plastic bags are a health hazard not only because they choke the soil, block our drains and pollute the air, but also because lead and cadmium pigments are used to colour these bags, which are invariably recycled. Every time a bag is recycled, its quality deteriorates.

And over a period of time, cadmium, used to colour the yellow bags, accumulates in the bones, deforming them, via the eatables carried in them. While this may cause misshapen limbs, lead, used in the pink bags, affects the kidneys. The black bags, used to carry mutton, are the most lethal. ``These pigments do not bond well and when they come in contact with food, they mix with it,'' explains environmentalist Bharti Chaturvedi.

Which is why if the Government takes action on these ``killer'' coloured polythene bags, it won't be a moment too soon. A move to this effect was initiated last week after a task force on Plastic Waste Management submitted its report to the Ministry of Environment and Forests.

But it will take a lot of doing for both shopkeepers and householders to rid themselves of this dependence on plastic. According to a March 1998 report by the environment group, Vatavaran, Jawaharlal Nehru University alone generates 6,000 plastic bags every day, the Asian Games Village produces 3,600 plastic bags, whereas East of Nizammudin's daily quota is 2,000 plastic bags. At the other end, just eight shops in the Asian Games Village dispense 400 big plastic bags and over 2,200 smaller ones to 1,000 households, again in a single day.

It's the recycled, high density, thin polythene bags, the kind your neighbourhood vegetable vendor gives you, which are the most dangerous. These are also the most popular with shopkeepers as they cost just Rs 40 per kg -- bags made of virgin plastic cost Rs 70 per kg. Big showrooms give you the low density polythene bags -- thick bags with the nice handles. The other variety is polyproplene, which is used by garment exporters to pack clothes in.

``It is all about profits,'' explains R.C. Arora, owner of R.C. Plastics in Kotla. ``Recycled polythene bags are much cheaper and for shopkeepers who don't have big margins to go by, these are the obvious choice.''At the Ministry of Environment and Forests' meeting last week, the report clearly suggested: ``Carry bags/containers made of recycled plastics should be banned from being used to carry or pack edible food products. Henceforth, polythene bags made of virgin plastic will be of natural colour without any pigment and carry bags made from recycled plastic will use only such pigments for colour as prescribed by the Bureau of Indian Standards.''

But the standards have not yet been set, so what you get is sub-standard material, made in the most unhygienic conditions in small units scattered in the city.