They're serious about eliminating plastic polythene bags in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. (No clue where that is? Click
here.) I came across this
BBC News article from 2003 that describes the problem of polythene pollution in Himachal Pradesh and what they are doing about it:
Under a new law, anyone found even using a polythene bag could face up to seven years behind bars or a fine of up to 100,000 rupees ($2,000). The new law bans the production, storage, use, sale and distribution of polythene bags.
After reading the article I took a quick poll of a few friends and concluded that a $2,000 fine for carrying a plastic bag would most likely eliminate plastic bag use here in the US. Since the article was written in 2003, I searched the Web and found a
more recent article that listed the efforts of several countries to reduce the use of plastic bags. (Hmmmm... America wasn't on the list. Must have been an error.)
While Ireland's 15 cents per bag tax would make a dramatic difference on plastic bag use in the US, I'm guessing Taiwan's $8,600 fine on shops that use them would have a much greater impact. How about Bangladesh and South Africa? They've implemented 10 years' imprisonment for producers of plastic bags or for any shop that uses them. That would do it for me.
While other countries are getting serious about reducing their plastic bag use, what are we doing? Here. Read this
article by John Roach for National Geographic News. Here's a little snippet:
The plastic bags are so inexpensive that in the stores no one treats them as worth anything... they use two, three, or four when one would do just as well. The "paper or plastic" conundrum that vexed earnest shoppers throughout the 1980s and 90s is largely moot today. Most grocery store baggers don't bother to ask anymore. They drop the bananas in one plastic bag as they reach for another to hold the six-pack of soda. The pasta sauce and noodles will get one too, as will the dish soap.
How embarrassing.
4 Comments:
Isn't the environmental impact of plastic bags dwarfed by the environmental impact of transporting the raw materials to make these bags and then transporting the bags?
In that case, aren't all kinds of bags almost equally bad?
By Jay, at 12:34 PM
Actually, per unit, the cost in natural resources and transportation fuel for plastic bags is vanishingly small. Think about how light and thin a plastic bag is. The real environmental problem lies in what happens to the bags after the consumer is through with them. This law in Himachal Pradesh, and similar laws in many other India states such as Sikkim have been written primarily because plastic bags clog waterways, particularly in himalayan muncipalities. This leads to flooding, soil erosion, and mass movement of soils. Flooding and minor landslides in Sikkim's capitol Gangtok led to the ban on plastic bags in the 90s. In addition, bits and pieces of plastic bags persist much longer than you'd suppose, and cause all sorts of havoc for wildlife. So in a way, its more forward thinking to try to eliminate plastic bags from the start than to encourage their use and try to mitigate all of the problems they cause.
By jim ratcliffe, at 9:51 AM
I loved hearing about the plastic bag initiatives! I am an expat living in Malaysia and plastic bags and plastic wrap is on everything here. For instance individual peppers in the grocery store will be wrapped in shrink wrap in order to then stick a UPC code on the vegetable. Another huge environmental problem here and in the rest of South East Asia is the waste from plastic water bottles. I always carry my resuable bottle, but when the water I've lugged from home is gone, I find myself buying water and contributing to the problem. Recycling has not caught on here in a major way. Have you found any solutions to this problem that other countries are using?
Thanks
Tammy
By Anonymous, at 4:45 AM
i lika da blogs
By Joe E, at 5:22 PM
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