Plastic Bags: Can We Kick the Habit?
Adventures in the development of truly biodegradable plastics are showing that technology can help us with our environmental challenges, but make no mistake technology on its own will not be able to deliver us from our environmental quagmire. This will only happen when we are mature enough and motivated enough to make positive and voluntary behavioral change.
Some members of the Australian community went into paroxysm when our muddle-headed environment minister toyed with the idea of charging a modest fee for plastic disposable shopping bags that are ordinarily handed out free.
The plastic charge
Being and free and plastic is of course a lethal cocktail as far as nature is concerned. There are roughly 6 billion plastic bags used each year in Australia and this end up clogging up land fill sites or stuck in the throats of hapless aquatic life form, normally the very endangered.
Those against the move argued that people would struggle to get their shopping home, and that a large percentage of the replacement bags that customers used would be made of plastic anyway. It was also argued that the old free shopping bags were great as garbage bin liners and if they were not available then alternative bags, again plastic, would have to be purchased for the purpose.
In short they argue that the concept of charging for bags would be costly for shoppers (isn’t this the whole point) and in all likelihood not reduce the total demand for plastic bags. (How they managed to ignore the international evidence supporting a cost on shopping bags is hard to fathom.)
But I too didn’t support the legislation, but for very different reasons.
If the law needs to be used to bring about this simple behavioral change in support of our natural environment then we are doomed. It is as simple as that.
Test yourself
For me it is the litmus test for material rich humans to prove that they are prepared to really do something, do anything to protect the environment.
If with our free will, without the threat of sanctions, we can’t make this one simple behavioral change, that of bringing our own bags to the shop, then quite simply we have no chance. If we cant take a step back one generation, to an age where people did, without thinking, bring their own bags shopping then how are we ever going to make the real sacrifices needed for 6 billion people and our natural systems to co-exist.
If we can’t solve this problem for ourselves then we, the spineless and spoilt, deserve what nature fires back at us.
Clean plastic
On a more cheery note the advent of truly biodegradable plastics around the world means that we will still be able to enjoy the benefits of plastic, albeit with some increased financial costs. But most importantly there will be a net benefit to the environment.
One local company coming along in leaps and bounds is Melbourne-based Plantic who make their plastic out of potato starch. This is truly biodegradable and apparently, I haven’t seen this happen, breaks down in water in a matter of moments. The water can then be used for drinking or for watering plants.
Another Australian company Ozmotech, is able to recycle plastic and turn it into diesel fuel. Now I haven’t done a complete study to see if this is actually a benefit to the environment, but if it takes plastic out of landfill and means less oil needs to be refined then it to could well be a winner. This technology is out of its testing phase and is attempting to reach a commercial scale in various countries.
Until technology does make our plastic needs more enviro-friendly just take your own bags shopping. Don’t wait to be told.
This is great information. In the meantime, I wish to buy a cloth bag to avoid using the plastic bags, whenever I go to the store(s).
I’d like to; however, buy a cloth bag from an organization that is pro-GREEN… like Planet Save or EcoWorldly… I’d rather the proceeds go to environment friendly groups like you. Do you offer such cloth bags for sale? If so, how do I find them?
thank you.
Carlos Herrera
Before you go out and buy new cloth bags, why not just look around and see what you already have? Maybe I just know a lot of packrats, but it seems to me that most of us have a few tote bags or something similar lying around already. Alternately, you could check thrift stores (buying used is greener than buying new), or make bags out of materials you have lying around already.
You don’t have to BUY a cloth bag my friend
Next time you go shopping, bring an old duffle bag or napsack you have lying around the house. Buying a cloth bag from a pro-Green organization sounds nice, but in reality you would only be contributing to more buying/selling because they would have to ship it to you. Reduce consumption; it’s not as hard as you think!
The only thing worse than plastic bags, are fliers. I swear that a tree gets killed monthly on my behalf just to deliver ads that I do not want.
I fail to see how this is a fair litmus test for the humanity - we are prone to alls sorts of emotions, ignoramus, laziness and other short comings. The litmus test is in the mechanisms we use to gain prosperous future.
The free market works because it ties into the innate characteristics of humans for a desired action. Sometimes this is greed but usually it is much less glamorous decisions on personal need.
Banning the bags is not a open market mechanism; factoring in full costs is. A bag costs many times more then the 3 cents for production if you also factor in the disposal and clean up. Have that cost incorporated the cost of shopping and behavior will change accordingly.
For me personally, I believe anything unsustainable is tantamount to sin. But I know I won’t get a inch if I preach the gospel of reusable bags.
I have been doing a great deal of self education over the last several months. . . .I recently started recycling my husband’s wire hangers after years of carelessly throwing them away.
I would gladly pay extra, simply out of remorse for my past ignorant behavior!
You make a good point (a necessary one, in fact), but I myself wouldn’t feel it is reason enough not to support such legislation. It may be that we need such laws to get us moving in the right direction, and saying that one won’t help it pass not because one disagrees with it but because one feels that the change should be made voluntarily or else we’re all doomed is basically saying “Perfect, or nothing at all,” to which I say “Perfect is the enemy of good enough.” We definitely and desperately need to make such positive changes in our way of living–not using plastic bags, reusing and recycling whatever we can, growing our own food or buying locally, etc.–for survival, and if many of us aren’t doing them of our own free will yet, then we need to be coaxed toward it and shown that it is possible. Some of us may not come around without such guidance. So while I agree with your thought, especially in that I feel we need to change our attitude overall, and not just our laws, for the immediate moment I feel we have to start somewhere, and laws are a very good place, if not a complete solution. We don’t really have time to wait around until everyone develops the right reasons for ecologically sustainable living–we have to get moving on it yesterday.
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Nope, I dont think we can kick the habit. I think we are totally hooked on plastic.
JT
http://www.FireMe.To/udi
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