Plastic Bag Bingo, Plastic Bag Cancer And Plastic Bag Anti-Christ
BAN the plastic bag – Anorak looks at the call to banish the plastic bag.
THE AGE (Aus): “Shoppers could face $1 plastic bag fee.”
Shoppers could have to pay up to a dollar for a plastic grocery bag as the Rudd government moves to protect the environment. Environment Minister Peter Garrett has been in talks with grocery retailers about the proposed bag fee, News Ltd reports.
The fee could be as low as 25 cents a bag, but supermarkets said even that would cost families an extra $156 a year for the dozen bags used in an average weekly shop.“Reports today that the federal government will introduce a levy of up to $1 per plastic bag are incorrect,” Mr Garrett said.
Garrett rules out plastic bag tax
Labor went to last year’s election promising to phase out plastic bag use but Mr Garrett said a levy was not the way to achieve this.
“All environment ministers, state, territory and commonwealth, will meet in April to consider a range of options in the phasing out of plastic bags,” said Mr Garrett.“The federal government will not support or promote any option for a Federal Government levy to achieve this objective.”
But we can agree on one thing: public enemy number one – the plastic bag.
THE TIMES: “‘Sexed-up’ numbers should not always be accepted as science”
Mike Hulme is a professor in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia. Says he:
In the recent flurry of moves to ban plastic bags a frequently cited statistic is that more than 100,000 marine mammals and sea turtles die each year from entanglement in, or ingestion of, plastic bags.
The original scientific study upon which this estimate relied actually attributed these deaths to fishing tackle in the oceans, not plastic bags. Yet the terms “100,000 marine deaths” and “plastic bags” now circulate happily through our public discourse, solidified as established fact.
THE SCOTSMAN: “Scientists rubbish killer plastic bag claims”
CLAIMS that plastic bags are responsible for killing hundreds of thousands of animals every year have been dismissed by leading scientists and environmentalists. The comments contradict efforts to stop supermarkets from handing out billions of the bags every year.
A senior spokesman for Greenpeace said: “It is unlikely that many animals are killed by plastic bags. The evidence shows just the opposite.”
Plastic bags save animals.
Lord Taverne, chairman of Sense about Science, a charitable trust, said “The Government is irresponsible to jump on a bandwagon that has no basis in scientific evidence.
“This is one of many examples where you get bad science leading to bad decisions which are counter-productive.
And: “Attacking plastic bags makes people feel good but it does not achieve anything.”
Of course: “It has been claimed that the bags take up to 1,000 years to break down.”
WINNIPEG SUN: “Stop making excuses and ban plastic bags already.”
We can’t expect consumers to break years of habit when they have little to gain or lose in doing so. That’s about as likely as all smokers butting out in public restaurants on their own accord without an indoor smoking ban to persuade them.
The dangers of second-hand smoke were known long before Manitoba’s indoor smoking law arrived to protect non-smokers.In situations like these, when habit and convenience lure consumers to avoid thinking about the consequences of their actions, an outright ban can eliminate excuses that lead us to take the easy way out.
KNOW: “Environment Canada officials say single-use plastic bags take nearly 400 years to decompose in the landfill.”
STUFF (NZ): “Make a difference: Say no to plastic bags
My family’s plastic horror story lurks under the kitchen sink: a frothy volcano of supermarket shopping bags spewing over the sides of a wait for it commodious green eco bag…
So in a week where this newspaper is asking New Zealanders to join the international chorus demanding action over “plastic poison” starting with the ubiquitous plastic shopping bags it seems fair that the editor should expose her eco sins.
Sinner. Plastic bags are against God.
BELFAST TELEGRAPH: Viewpoint: Time we said no to plastic bags”
For anyone who is yet to be convinced that non-degradable plastic is a menace, the statistics are frightening.
The average shopper gets through eight bags a week, and although they are normally used for five minutes, they will take at least 500 years to decompose. Either they form an impermeable layer in landfill sites or they are scattered to the four winds, littering hedges, rivers, and even oceans, where they kill aquatic life.
Kill the bag. Ban the bag users. Bag the bag.
Banish The Bag With Gordon Brown And New Labour
Banish Plastic Bags And Save The Turtles
London Bans The Plastic Bag: Global Warming Free Zone
Banish The Bag And The Mail On Sunday’s Wrapper
Posted: 9th, March 2008 | In: Reviews Comment (1) | TrackBack | Permalink
