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.
A comment to Ross Kendall:
My name is Fleur Wilkins and I am responsible for the Marketing/Communications at Plantic Technologies.
Thank you for including Plantic in the above article, however, I would like to clarify that Plantic materials are not manufactured from potato starch. Plantic materials are manufactured from high amylose non-GM corn starch.
Plantic materials are fully biodgradable, home compostable, compostable to European (EN13432) and American (ASTM 6400)standards, and water dispersible.
For more information on high amylose corn starch, see our website http://www.plantic.com.au/our-technologies/the-sustainability-argument/
Every little bit counts. The best solution often involves attacking the problem from all angles. But perhaps the best thing that the proposal to charge money for the plastic bags is just an increase in the awareness to the public that there is a problem.
500 billion plastic bags yearly worldwide - a horrifying number of consumption for a completely frivolous product. Also a number against which to measure our nurtured ignorance and our resistance to behave responsibly, even if it is possible without any mentionable effort to do so. Reusable bags from fabric, woven baskets, even laundry baskets for those who do their shopping with a car: there is truly no effort in replacing the plastic bag, or rather to reclaim traditional ways of transportation of goods. I have been told that using an “alternative” bag has to be considered a political statement (one that the speaker wasn’t willing to make) but I would say that the use of plastic bags amounts to a political statement as well. Who is threatened by a refusal to use plastic bags, a product that is distributed “free of charge” after all? Consumer education is as political a topic as it ever gets.
I live on a small island and use a reusable bag that folds into in a pouch. It attaches to my car keys so I never forget it. I haven’t used a plastic bag ever since and my opinion is there really is no excuse.www.fizbag.com
[...] baby steps? 28 07 2008 I was reading this post by Ross Kendall at EcoWordly titled “Plastic bags: can we kick the habit?“ “Adventures in the development of truly biodegradable plastics are showing that [...]
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