The evil of the plastic bag

It’s official, plastic bags are public enemy number one!!

As a groundbreaking invention of the 1950s, no one gave a second thought to the ‘plastic bag’ until recent years.

Useful in so many ways, not to mention doubling as a garbage bag in many bedrooms, the plastic bag has now been recognized as a danger to our environment.

It looks like a future without plastic bags for everyone. Many countries are now putting green structures in place to stop the spread of this blemish on the landscape; the UK, South Africa and Australia to name a few.

The powers that be in San Francisco, for example, bought into a law in 2007 that bans the use of plastic bags. With a population of approximately 752,000, it was estimated that the city generates more than 1,400 tons of waste each year from plastic bags alone.

Not being biodegradable has been one of the downsides of ‘PB’, being made from a non-renewable natural resource – petroleum means it just can’t be. And for those of you reading this, plastic does photodegrade, which means; the process of breaking down plastic into smaller pieces and thereby polluting our soil, waterways, and oceans.

Basically, it breaks down and never goes away! Wikipedia can also tell you about this…

The plastic bag also hates animals. Animals eat them thinking it is food. They get trapped in it and subsequently starve to death. It’s so sad and so inevitable, if we all get our act together sooner rather than later…

Large supermarket chains are offering an alternative to the plastic bag by offering ‘a bag for life’. Tesco, for example, adds an extra incentive with a Green Clubcard Points scheme that can save your customer a little more money on their grocery purchases.

While Sainsbury’s produces around 1.6 billion bags a year. And he has given away 15 million ‘bags for life’ in the last year to his customers. They have also changed the materials used in their free bags to include 10% chalk to reduce the use of virgin plastic and claim that the plastic bags are made from 33% recycled material.

So where do we go from here then? Everyone has an idea about this and how to address the immediate and long term problem. And I guess the good thing is that companies now, big and small, are seriously rethinking this issue for once; behind their own backs or by force through new legislation.

However, in this year’s budget it was announced that the UK government would enact legislation in 2009 to reduce the number of plastic bags in use by 12 billion. Too little too late? Maybe… Why wait until 2009 then?

Go back to the bags just for a second. For all the fashionistas, these days there is no need to dress to be green. Some of the alternative bags for life are not all that; we know. But now there are some great bags out there, so there’s really no excuse. An excellent one we found was this one at http://www.bagsofchange.co.uk/