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Plastic bags can poison kids
At a recent gathering of kindergarten mothers in Seattle, Shawn Lilley
told the women that plastic bags and other containers can leach
chemicals into food. Since then, a few more kindergartners have shown
up with sandwiches in other containers.
"Shawn researches these kinds of things, and it's not that much more
expensive, so we switched," said Linda Walker, who packs lunch daily
for her three children.
Because of their lower body weight and proximity to the ground, where
residue may linger, children feel the effects of chemicals more than
adults.
The main suspects are a group of chemicals called phthalates which are
used in making plastic bags. These have been found to be harmful in
animal studies, said Dr. Wade Welshons of the University of Missouri in
Columbia. And the Centers for Disease Control has detected them in the
urine of a majority of the thousands of people it has tested in the
United States.
Among other damage, these have also been branded gender benders as they
inhibit the full genital and sexual development of male children.
Parents' buying patterns can lead to industry changes. While phthalates
can be used in some children's toys in the United States, parental
pressure led the Consumer Product Safety Commission in 1998 to ask
manufacturers to take them out of teething rings and pacifiers.
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The Guardian UK says give up plastic bags
This morning’s Guardian online carried an article on 10 things Britons
ought to give up. These include giving up forwarding amusing emails,
being buffered behind an IPod all the time, leaving things on standby
and consuming unnecessary electricity, and a few others, but No.1 on
the list was:
1: GIVE UP... PLASTIC CARRIER BAGS (Here’s what the article says):
Polythene plastic bags are dangerous to make, take centuries to
decompose, and clog drainage systems. Even so, Britons use 8 million
plastic carrier bags every year, equivalent to 133 per person. For a
little over a month, you need not be one of them.
It's pretty easy to ditch the plastic. Bags-for-life are available from
many large chains, but it's just as simple to bring your own bag to the
shop. If supermarkets see there is demand for a more responsible
attitude to plastic bags, they will be more inclined to take permanent
action.
"Landfill sights are now practically full in this country, and plastic
has to be shipped all round the world to be dealt with," says The
Independent's Green Goddess, Julia Stephenson. "If you use a reusable
bag like we used to - everyone used to use string bags - the problem
could be alleviated."
"I carry a string bag everywhere and it folds up to nothing. You just
have to remember it along with your mobile phone and wallet.
Bags-for-life are a good idea, but only if you reuse them. People seem
to be taking their bags-for-life, but not bringing them back. They've
become another thing that we consume."
I’m so happy to read this. It’s nice that the mainstream press is
taking cognizance of the harm that plastic bags are doing. String bags
are one and we have a number of other good ideas on how it can become
easy to carry your own bag. Write to us at info @ badlani.com and we’ll
offer you some amazingly affordable and convenient options.
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A plastic bag tax is a must it seems
I came across a disturbing article in the Australian Northern Star.
Australia has been at the forefront of the battle against plastic bags,
but on a strictly voluntary basis and I thought that was admirable.
Taxation works wonders (Ireland reduced consumption of plastic bags 90%
in just one year of introducing a tax), but I there’s nothing like all
the citizens getting involved and avoinding plastic bags because they
are harming our living environment.
But Dee Tipping in Byron Shire, who began a ‘bring your own shopping
bag’ campaign in 2003 with the aim of making Byron Bay free of plastic
bags by 2005, now advocates a levy.
She said the campaign initially took off, but had since hit a plateau
and she was now planning to lobby the Federal Government to introduce a
policy of a 25cent levy on plastic bags.
"Activists can do so much, but government policy is what will make or break the environment," she said.
"People do have the best intentions at heart, but we’re notoriously
forgetful, she added "Some people have 85 of those green bags at home,
which defeats the purpose. If people had to pay 25 cents per plastic
bag they would make more of an effort to remember their green bag."
Looks like taxation is the most effective thing. If we can tax food and
medicines, we ought to be taxing harmful things like plastic bags.
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Plastic bags are killers
Here’s a story by K. S. Parthasarathy in Mumbai. He was the former secretary of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board of India.
Tarapur, on the West coast of India, has a nuclear power plant.
In May 1995, in Tarapur, routine sampling of a storm-water drain at
this facility detected a small amount of caesium-137, which was traced
to steam condensate from the plant. The leak contaminated an area of
about 40 square metres, well within the premises.
The radioactivity was so dilute that a person would have had to drink
50 litres of storm water every day for an entire year to exceed the
maximum safe dose. And the plant personnel disposed of the affected
soil safely. The leak posed no health risk.
But the story "grew legs". Dozens of reporters descended on the site.
Some attributed the leak to a nuclear power station nearby. In some
versions, the leak had killed local cattle. The Times of India, one of
the most widely circulated newspapers in the country, published
photographs of the skeletons of animals said to have been killed by the
leak.
Angry villagers dragged the carcass of a calf to the site. I was at
Tarapur to investigate the leak. During the autopsy, which I requested,
the vet pulled out several kilograms of polythene bags from the dead
calf's stomach. The body did not contain an abnormally high amount of
radioactivity.
Stomach clogging by thin plastic bags causes 90 per cent of cattle
deaths in parts of India. In one state capital, the authorities keep an
ambulance with rescue personnel ready to rush to the spot to do
emergency surgery on cattle in distress. They get many calls every day.
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Learning from Singapore
Singapore is already one of the world’s cleanest cities because they
have laws against littering and they enforce them properly. Look at
this squeaky clean street. Wouldn’t you love to have your city look
like this?
Now the National Environment Agency of Singapore has launched a program
to encourage people to use reusable bags instead of plastic bags. They
aren’t doing this in any knee-jerk manner like suddenly banning plastic
bags without even considering what alternatives people can use. No,
they have a planned program, which starts with an educational process
for schools, where they are giving away beautifully produced teaching
materials to teachers and schools to use.
That’s the most effective way to go. Get children to first understand and then spread the message.
We are in the reusable bags business because one day my daughter came
home from school and banned plastic bags from our home, thanks to one
wonderful teacher who made the kids understand how much harm plastic
bags are doing.
We’ve recently formed a body called the Ecoright Association where the
first thing we done is to manufacture a product that is a viable
alternative to plastic bags. Because a viable alternative cannot be
made at as low a cost as plastic bags, we’ve deployed our marketing,
branding and business exposure to evolve a strategy by which people can
acquire these alternate bags at a very low cost by involving
corporations and brands that understand the benefits they derive from
looking like good corporate citizens who contribute to the welfare of
society.
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I just love Goa
For its beaches and heavenly holiday ambience of course, but also for
its community activism. See the story below about the kids protesting
against plastic last month. Scroll below or click on http://www.badlani.com/blog/comments.php?id=107_0_1_0_C
I’m back in Ahmedabad after holidaying there with my family (that’s
them in the photo) and just a month later I’m gratified to read that
the Mormugao Municipal Council has banned plastic bags from its city.
They’ve requested other panchayats (village councils) in the district
also to follow suit and already the Chicalim village panchayat has
today banned plastic carry-bags from its jurisdiction thus becoming the
first panchayat in the state to do so.
This positions Goan administrations even at the village level as being
way more aware and progressive than the city governments of so many
larger Indian cities. Really something for Goans to be proud of.
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Just plain common sense
Plastic bags cause harm to the environment. Governments have to spend
lots of money containing this harm. Who should pay for this? The
community as a whole?
Definitely not, says Bruno Oberle, head of Switzerland’s Federal
Environment Office, “Polluters must pay; they cannot be allowed to off
load the costs on to others. Otherwise you get a distortion of prices,
and of the rules governing a market economy. Correctives must therefore
be introduced”. This was published at www.swissinfo.org in an article called Being Green is Good for Business
Ireland had the right idea. They introduced a tax on plastic bags and consumption feel 90% in just one year.
Just plain common sense. You do wrong, you’re made to pay, you quickly correct your behaviour.
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