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.
Nope, I dont think we can kick the habit. I think we are totally hooked on plastic.
JT
http://www.FireMe.To/udi
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
Enviropack is a progressive and environmentally conscious company dedicated to reducing the overall harmful effects of packaging upon the Environment. We have developed a range of ethical, eco-friendly and biodegradable bags made from Jute Cotton, Canvas, Non-Woven and Juco.
WONDERFUL! This is so important: to believe in and conduct sustainability. Keep up the great work!
Dear Sir,
I fully agree with the concept of getting rid of the habit sooner than later.
It is always hard for humans to adapt to new measures and stringent methods of saving the planet.
Who cares?
That is the general sentiment of most people.
To some extent, I cannot blame them as a large percentage of the human race is barely able to survive on meagre earnings and drowning in poverty.
In poor countries like India and Pakistan and Afghanistan, plastic bags are looked upon as a valuable product that is preserved if in good condition,and re-used over and over as much as it is possible.
So these poor nations cannot do much and since they are mostly illeterate they cannot be educated to make changes.
I feel it is upto the rest of the world to pull all its resources like the Australian Company PLANTIC to come up with solutions and spread these technologies far and wide and start joing venture companies and production in countries like India etc.
actually, I am from India and I live in Dubai and I would be very interested to explore the possibilities of collaboration with Plantic and other such comapnies.
I am from india and I live in Dubai which is in the United Arab Emirates and these countries are quite aware of eco friendly subjects and will do anything to bring about changes.sources for these green bags which dissolve in water.
I have just visited the web site of Plantic and I am truly amazed at how they have achieved this feat.
I will certainly write to them now and let them know my feelings and see if it is possible to do some business together.
Thanks you very much for the opporutnity to express my opinion on your web page.
Sincerest regards,
khem parsram
dubai
00 971 5 56 808 43
ps.By the way I am visiting australia for a vacation next week.My son is graduating from Murdoch University in Perth with highest rank