Ban the bags?

Too much of the reliable plastic bag?

I'm sure you all know the environmental reasoning behind the objection to plastic bags. In case you don't here's a brief outline. They can take up to 1000 years to decompose, and can harm and kill wildlife. Not to mention that they use 0.2% of the world's oil. Economically, the problem is that as they are provided free, and so heavily over consumed. If a price that reflects the environmental cost of plastic bags was charged, people would switch to far more eco-friendly alternatives.

In just one year, the cause has rapidly come a long way, recieving far more media attention. The Daily Mail are even replacing some of their coverage of footballers wives with a 'Banish The Bags' campaign. Don't worry though, this isn't at the expense of their coverage of Princess Diana. A quick search on their website shows that they have 2448 articles online with her in.

There has been a lot of success in the campaign to abolish the plastic bags. Marks and Spencer are already charging for them. Other supermarkets aren't quite ready to risk following suit, but there has been some agreement. The main ones are trying to reduce plastic bag consumption by 25% and now only putting a few bags out at a time.

The issue of banning plastic bags has been around for just over a year now, since the town of Modbury in South Devon decided to ban them in May 2007. Other English towns such as Girton, Overton, Henfield, Hebden Bridge and Tisbury have followed suit. These have all declared their towns as plastic bag free zones. Many other towns are in the planning stages or are considering implementing restrictions. You might be surprised to hear that our very own York is one of these.

You may be thinking that these towns don't make all that much difference on a global scale. If no one else is paying for their plastic bags, then why should I? Well throughout the whole of China, from the beginning on this month, you must pay for plastic bags. The developing world has taken the lead with one of the most urgent environmental problems.

But I think it is all a bit unnecessary. The only way laws will be passed to restrict plastic bags is if people care enough about the environment. If they did, then they would only use plastic bags when needed. If the supermarkets give out free bags, and we genuinely want to help the environment, it is our responsibility to reduce our use of them.

Apparently only 1 in every 200 plastic bags gets recycled. This statistic seems horrifying and appears to highlight how extremely wasteful we are. But many people reuse their plastic bags in everyday life. I never heard of a single person disposing of their plastic bags directly whether through recycling or landfill. Plastic bags are used for everything from lining your bins, to storing your recycling in. The plastic bag proves to be a reliable resource, essential in day to day activity. We never really entirely waste a plastic bag, as it is often claimed.

So, if you follow the environmental mantra of reduce, re-use recycle, there is no need to worry about plastic bags any more than worrying about how much we all over consume everything else.

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