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News on plastic bag war from around the world
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Top Story - Stories in the US
New York Times, 4.1.07
By a 10-1 Board of Supervisors’ vote, San Francisco became the first major American city to ban the use of non-biodegradable plastic bags by supermarkets, drug stores and other large retailers.
Yet another alternative is to sell consumers reusable bags.
“The paper versus plastics question takes us off the issue, which is consumption,” says Vincent Cobb, who offers reusable bags and containers on the Internet. “Getting into the habit of bringing your own shopping bag,” he says, “can slash this problem across the board.”
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Top Story - Stories in the US
Christian Science Monitor, 3.29.07
In a trailblazing environmental move that recognizes one of the stubborn shortfalls of traditional recycling, San Francisco city leaders have approved a ban on nonbiodegradable plastic bags at supermarkets and large pharmacy checkout counters.
By voting March 27 to ban traditional plastic bags, made from petroleum, the city hopes to spur retailers to provide an alternative type of plastic bag – one made from starches.
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Top Story - Stories in the US
CNN.com, 3.28.07
SAN FRANCISCO, California (Reuters) -- San Francisco's Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to become the first U.S. city to ban plastic bags from large supermarkets to help promote recycling.
Under the legislation, beginning in six months large supermarkets and drugstores will not be allowed to offer plastic bags made from petroleum products.
"Many [foreign] cities and nations have already implemented very similar legislation," said Ross Mirkarimi, the city legislator who championed the new law. "It's astounding that San Francisco would be the first U.S. city to follow suit."
"I am hopeful that other U.S. cities will also adopt similar legislation," he said. "Why wait for the federal government to enact legislation that gets to the core of this problem when local governments can just step up to the plate?"
The city's Department of the Environment said San Francisco uses 181 million plastic grocery bags annually. Plans dating back a decade to encourage recycling of the bags have largely failed, with shoppers returning just one percent of bags, said department spokesman Mark Westland.
Mirkarimi said the ban would save 450,000 gallons of oil a year and remove the need to send 1,400 tons of debris now sent annually to landfills. The new rules would, however, allow recyclable plastic bags, which are not widely used today.
A spokesman for San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who must approve or veto the legislation, called it sensible. "Chances are good that he is going to sign it," said Nathan Ballard.
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Top Story - Stories in the US
New York Times, 3.27.07
SAN FRANCISCO, March 27 — Paper or paper?
That may soon be the only question heard at grocery counters across San Francisco, as the city's Board of Supervisors cast a decisive blow in the paper versus plastic debate on Tuesday, banning non-biodegradable plastic bags in its large grocery stores and pharmacies.
The ordinance, believed to be the first of its kind in the nation, will remove standard plastic bags from supermarkets and pharmacies with sales of more than $2 million a year, said its author, Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, who said his city was simply following a worldwide trend toward greener grocers.
"Scores of nations have already gone through this," said Mr. Mirkarimi, citing similar laws in places including South Africa and Taiwan. "It’s really astounding the United States would be so late in the game to come online to do something that should be common sense...
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Top Story - Plastic Bottles
LA Times, 3.7.07
A firm with industry connections is removed from overseeing a federal evaluation on the safety of bisphenol A.
The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences has begun a review of ties between a federal health center that evaluates the risks of chemicals to reproductive health and a consulting firm funded by companies that produce chemicals linked to reproductive disorders.
The investigation follows a Times report on Sunday that Sciences International, an Alexandria, Va., firm funded by more than 50 industrial companies, helps manage the federal Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction.
Among the firms with financial ties to Sciences International are two that produce bisphenol A, a chemical in polycarbonate plastic bottles that has been linked in animal testing to prostate and breast cancer and reduced fertility...
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Top Story - Plastic Bottles
Environmental Working Group, 3.5.07
We included this article because the issues associated with BPA leaching from canned goods is closely associated to BPA leaching from polycarbonate bottles.
Independent laboratory tests found a toxic food-can lining ingredient associated with birth defects of the male and female reproductive systems in over half of 97 cans of name-brand fruit, vegetables, soda, and other commonly eaten canned goods. The study was spearheaded by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) and targeted the chemical bisphenol A (BPA), a plastic and resin ingredient used to line metal food and drink cans. There are no government safety standards limiting the amount of BPA in canned food...
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Top Story - Plastic Bottles
environmentcalifornia.org, 3.1.07
A hormone-disrupting toxic chemical known to be a developmental, neural, and reproductive toxicant—called bisphenol A—leaches from popular clear, plastic baby bottles, according to a new report released today by Environment California Research and Policy Center. In Toxic Baby Bottles: Scientific Study Finds Leaching Chemicals in Clear Plastic Baby Bottles, Environment California Research and Policy Center worked with an independent laboratory to determine whether toxic chemicals leach from the most popular baby bottles on the market.
“A child’s first few years are an exciting time for parents who hope that their child starts his or her life happy and healthy,” said Rachel Gibson, Environmental Health Advocate and Staff Attorney for Environment California, who is the report’s author. “Unfortunately, parents do not have the information they need to adequately protect their children from toxic chemicals. California should require manufacturers to remove toxic chemicals from children’s products and, in the meantime, give parents the information they need to make informed purchasing decisions—right away.”
Environment California Research and Policy Center worked with an independent laboratory to analyze five of the most popular brands of baby bottles on the market to determine whether bisphenol A—a chemical linked to developmental, neural, and reproductive problems—leached from the bottles into liquids contained inside them...
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Top Story - Stories in the US
MSNBC.com, 2.21.07
Sweden's IKEA will charge U.S. customers five cents for disposable plastic shopping bags in what the international furniture giant said on Wednesday was a first step to ending their use altogether.
IKEA said the decision to stop giving away free bags to customers aimed to reduce the estimated 100 billion bags thrown away by all U.S. consumers each year.
IKEA is believed to be first retailer in the United States to undertake such a program, according to National Retail Federation spokesman Scott Krugman.
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Top Story - News Regarding Retailers
MSNBC.com, 2.21.07
Sweden's IKEA will charge U.S. customers five cents for disposable plastic shopping bags in what the international furniture giant said on Wednesday was a first step to ending their use altogether.
IKEA said the decision to stop giving away free bags to customers aimed to reduce the estimated 100 billion bags thrown away by all U.S. consumers each year.
IKEA is believed to be first retailer in the United States to undertake such a program, according to National Retail Federation spokesman Scott Krugman.
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Top Story - Lead in Lunch Box Issue
CNN.com, 2.18.07
Associated Press
CNN.com news story
(AP) -- In 2005, when government scientists tested 60 soft, vinyl lunchboxes, they found that one in five contained amounts of lead that medical experts consider unsafe -- and several had more than 10 times hazardous levels.
But that's not what they told the public.
Instead, the Consumer Product Safety Commission released a statement that they found "no instances of hazardous levels." And they refused to release their actual test results, citing regulations that protect manufacturers from having their information released to the public.
That data was not made public until The Associated Press received a box of about 1,500 pages of lab reports, in-house e-mails and other records in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed a year ago.
The documents describe two types of tests. One involves cutting a chunk of vinyl off the bag, dissolving it and then analyzing how much lead is in the solution; the second test involves swiping the surface of a bag and then determining how much lead has rubbed off.
The results of the first type of test, looking for the actual lead content of the vinyl, showed that 20 percent of the bags had more than 600 parts per million of lead -- the federal safe level for paint and other products. The highest level was 9,600 ppm, more than 16 times the federal standard.
But the CPSC did not use those results.
"When it comes to a lunchbox, it's carried. The food that you put in the lunch box may have an outer wrapping, a baggie, so there isn't direct exposure. The direct exposure would be if kids were putting their lunchboxes in their mouth, which isn't a common way for children to interact with their lunchbox," said CPSC spokeswoman Julie Vallese.
Thus the CPSC focused exclusively on how much lead came off the surface of a lunchbox when lab workers swiped them.
For the swipe tests, the results were lower, especially after the researchers changed their testing protocol. After a handful of tests, they increased the number of times they swiped each bag, again and again on the same spot, resulting in lower average results.
An in-house e-mail from the director of the CPSC's chemistry division explained that they had been retesting with the new protocol "which gave a lower average result than the prior report. ... ," he wrote. "This shows ... that the overall risk is lower than our original testing would have showed, as the amount of lead dislodgeable is mostly taken out with the first wipe and goes down with subsequent wipes."
Vallese explained it this way: "The more you wipe, the less lead you actually find. With fewer wipes we got a higher detection of lead presence. We thought more wipes was closer to reflecting how you would interact with your lunchbox. It was more realistic."
The test results also show that many lunchboxes were tested only on the outside, which is unlikely to be in contact with food. Vallese said this was because children handle their lunchboxes from the outside.
As a result of their tests, the CPSC issued a public statement last year reassuring consumers they had nothing to worry about: "Based on the extremely low levels of lead found in our tests, in most cases, children would have to rub their lunchbox and then lick their hands more than 600 times every day, for about 15-30 days, in order for the lunchbox to present a health hazard."
Vallese said the commission stands by those statements.
But the results were disconcerting to experts who reviewed them for the AP.
"They found levels that we consider very high," said Alexa Engelman, a researcher at the Oakland, California-based Center for Environmental Health, which has filed a series of legal complaints about lead in lunchboxes.
"They knew this all along and they didn't take action on it. It's upsetting to me. Why are we, as a country, protecting the companies? We should be protecting the kids. I don't think in this instance they did their job."
Said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-California: "I am concerned that the CPSC has failed to protect children from an unnecessary hazard they have known about for some time. We should protect our children by banning lead in all children's products."
Although these test results are only now being aired publicly, the CPSC did provide them to the Food and Drug Administration last summer. The FDA's reaction was completely different from the CPSC's. In July 2006, after receiving the test results, the FDA sent a letter to lunch box manufacturers warning them that their lead levels might be dangerously high and advising them that the FDA might take action against them because the lead would be considered a food additive if it rubbed off onto kids' lunches.
"The lunchboxes containing the lead compounds may be subject to enforcement action," said the letter.
In response to the FDA warning, Wal-Mart stopped selling soft lunchboxes with vinyl liners, and offered refunds to customers who wanted to return the ones they already had.
"The safety of our customers is always a top priority for Wal-Mart," said store officials in a written statement last summer.
Other manufacturers have recently revamped their manufacturing processes to eliminate lead, or stopped making the lunchboxes altogether. Those changes have been prompted in large part by pressure from the Center for Environmental Health and several other nonprofit advocacy groups in New York and Washington State that have been testing lunchboxes and publicly airing the results for several years.
In Connecticut, where the safe threshold is 100 parts per million, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has demanded that lunchboxes must be lead-free.
"Lead, lunch and children are a perilous mix," Blumenthal said. "The discovery of lead in children's lunch boxes is appalling. Our law is clear: Lead-laden lunchboxes are illegal."
Other states, including California, New York and Illinois, have forced specific manufacturers to pull their products from store shelves after individual boxes were found to have levels above 600 ppm.
Lead is a stabilizing agent in vinyl, but there are other chemicals that can be used instead of lead. Almost every lunch box found with lead in the vinyl lining was made in China.
But they are distributed worldwide. Other information in the documents include an e-mail from Canadian health officials, who found more than 600 parts per million of lead in seven of the 11 lunchboxes they tested.
Allen Blakey, a spokesman for the Vinyl Institute, a trade association representing the leading manufacturers of vinyl, said his organization defers to the regulatory agencies.
"The CPSC was pretty clear that they did not see a danger in these lunchboxes. The FDA had a slightly different take on it. But basically, we have not seen any indication of actual harm from the lunchboxes," he said.
Public health experts consider elevated levels of lead in blood a significant health hazard for U.S. children. Studies have repeatedly shown that childhood exposure to lead can lead to learning problems, reduced intelligence, hyperactivity and attention deficit disorder. There is no lead level that is considered safe in blood, and recent studies have shown adverse health effects even at very low levels.
"I don't think the Consumer Product Safety Commission has lived up to its role to protect kids from lead," said Dr. Bruce Lamphear, a lead poisoning specialist at the Children's Hospital Medical Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. "As a public agency, their work should be transparent. And if one is to err on the side of protecting children rather than protecting lunch box makers, then certainly you would want to lower the levels."
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Top Story - Europe
Somerset County Gazette, 1.26.07
A campaign being led by the Somerset County Council and Somerset Waste Partnership will encourage retailers and check-out staff not to automatically give out carrier bags but to ask shoppers whether they actually need a bag. Wellington shoppers are being urged to play their part by using reusable shopping bags and packing the maximum amount that they can into carrier bags they take. They are also being reminded to reuse old bags such as using them as waste bin liners or for separating materials within their recycling boxes.
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Top Story - Asia
Daily Times, 1.22.07
Thousands of plastic bags are thrown away everyday in Pakistan, which results in choked drains, bacterial germinations, water borne diseases and the spread of mosquitoes. Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency Director General says the situation is “grim”. “We need a mass awareness campaign and cooperation of the people to control the use of polythene bags.” He said that almost 47% of solid waste remains uncollected in the country and that the mixing of polythene bags with human, animal and industrial residues worsens the problem.
Deputy managing director of the Water And Sanitation Agency supports a ban on the use of polythene bags, which may see difficult as 250,000 people are employed in this industry.
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Top Story - Australia
Star News Group, 1.17.07
The people of Cockatoo are being urged to swap plastic bags for more environmentally friendly alternatives. Cardinia Shire Council and Sustainability Victoria are joining forces with Cockatoo retailers to take up the challenge to make the town plastic bag- free. The people of Cockatoo are invited to join the campaign “Cockatoo: a plastic bag free town." Ranges Ward councillor Graeme Legge said that after the launch of the campaign, retailers will be urging their customers to say no to plastic bags. Cr Legge said people need to also make sure they remember to use their reusable bags whenever they shop in Cockatoo.
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Top Story - Europe
Voice of America, 12.10.06
The city of Paris has decided to ban non-biodegradable plastic bags in large stores as of 2007, in an effort to cut down on pollution.
Experts say these disposable bags account for 8,000 tons of waste generated in Paris each year, at a cost of more than $2 million. Yves Contassot, the man responsible for environment and waste at the Paris city hall, says plastic bags are just one lesson about the dangers of overpackaging, and of using petroleum-based products to make these non-renewable bags. Parisians need to economize resources by managing them better, Contassot says. It's a question of environmental responsibility.
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Top Story - Australia
Adelaide Now, 12.7.06
South Australians lead the nation in their support for a ban on plastic bags, a Newspoll survey says.
Nine out of 10 people surveyed (91%) said they were in favour of a ban on plastic bags to help reduce landfill, damage to marine life and greenhouse pollution.
Legislation is being developed and there will be a consultation process.
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Top Story - Trashing Our Oceans
Reuters, 11.5.06
There is a vast vortex of plastic trash in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, threatening sea creatures that get tangled in it, eat it or ride on it, a new report says.
The report, "Plastic Debris in the World's Oceans," by international environmental group Greenpeace, said at least 267 species are known to have suffered from entanglement or ingestion of marine debris. Because plastic doesn't break down the way organic material does, ocean currents and tides have carried it thousands of miles to an area between Hawaii and the U.S. West Coast, according to the study.
The new report comes days after the journal Science projected that Earth's stocks of fish and seafood would collapse by 2048 if trends in overfishing and pollution continue.
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Top Story - Great Britain
edie.com, 11.3.06
Plans to follow in the footsteps of Ireland by introducing a tax on plastic bags have been put on the backburner in Scotland after the MSP who proposed them withdrew his Bill.
Mike Pringle, Lib Dem MSP for Edinburgh South, had put forward a Plastic Bag Levy Bill which would see supermarkets and other retailers providing plastic bags charging a small fee for every carrier customers required, in an effort to encourage consumers to use their own bags.
The Bill had found considerable support among other MSPs, though manufacturers of the bags had, unsurprisingly, opposed the moves, saying it would harm the Scottish economy and cost jobs.
But now, despite the fact the Scottish Executive has not passed the Bill, Mr Pringle says he has accomplished what he set out to do and it is now down to the executive to take what steps it feels are required to tackle plastic waste north of the border. According to Mr. Pringle, "withdrawing this Bill now puts the ball firmly in the Scottish Executive's court. I want to see concrete proposals that integrate my Bill into an overall waste minimisation strategy.
Ross Finnie, Scottish Environment Minister, claimed a voluntary code asking retailers to sign up for reductions could be just as effective as legislation. "I would strongly urge retailers to sign up to the voluntary code and I'd expect to see progress shortly. If agreement cannot be reached, then legislation may have to be considered."
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Top Story - Tales of the Weird
New York Times, 9.20.06
Where will plastic bags turn up next? Check out our photo gallery to see some of the other, more earthly, locations, that they have been photographed in.
With extra inspections showing no problems, NASA managers today cleared the space shuttle Atlantis for a Thursday landing after an extra day in space because of concerns about unexpected debris floating from the ship. NASA delayed a landing set for Wednesday and kept Atlantis in orbit an extra day while engineers tried to determine if a mystery object seen floating nearby indicated possible damage to the spacecraft. The shuttle program director, N. Wayne Hale Jr., said the mystery object unexpectedly seen by shuttle cameras was likely a plastic shim used to separate thermal tiles on the bottom of the orbiter.
Late Tuesday, one of the astronauts aboard Atlantis spotted a second object floating by a window and photographed it. Mr. Hale said the second object appeared to be a plastic bag mistakenly left in the cargo bay before launch. And today, astronauts spotted three other small bits of debris that looked like a piece of foil and plastic rings. Mr. Hale said that such so-called foreign object debris is not uncommon, but that NASA works to eliminate it.
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Top Story - ReusableBags.com in the News
An Inconvenient Truth, 7.13.06
We're very proud of our recent endorsement in the appendix of Al Gore's blockbuster book addressing global warming, An Inconvenient Truth. It states, "To purchase reusable bags, learn more bag facts, and find actions you can take, visit www.reusablebags.com" (pg. 316). The appendix offers a handful of practical tips with the overarching philosophy of "Consume less, conserve more."
Using our key statistics, facts and sound bites, Gore develops a succinct pitch to raise awareness to the many problems associated with use-and-toss shopping bags:
"...an estimated 500 billion to one trillion plastic bags are consumed world-wide every year. In the U.S. alone, an estimated 12,000,000 barrels of oil are required to produce the 100 billion consumed annually... furthermore, paper bags are no better than plastic." Paper bag production delivers a global warming double-whammy -- forests (major absorbers of greenhouse gases) have to be cut down, and then the subsequent manufacturing of bags produces greenhouse gases. In short, carry a reusable bag and when asked paper or plastic, say neither... (pgs. 315-316).
Gore then touches on a parallel cause we have been passionately committed to for several years, carrying your own refillable bottle, for water or other beverages as a smart alternative to use-and-toss disposables. Gore urges, "Instead of buying single-use plastic bottles that require significant energy and resources to produce, buy a reusable container and fill it up yourself. In addition to the emissions created by producing the bottles themselves, imported water is especially energy inefficient because it has to be transported over long distances..." (pg. 316).
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Top Story - ReusableBags.com in the News
NY Times, 3.12.06
REACHING into their nylon lunch bags at school, Casey and Cameron Lilley pull sandwiches made of organic ingredients out of wax paper wrappers, and sip water from coated aluminum containers from Switzerland. Their mother, Shawn Lilley, had carefully chosen the packaging.
At a recent gathering of kindergarten mothers in Seattle, Ms. Lilley told the women that chemicals could leach from plastic bags and other plastic containers into food. Since then, a few more kindergartners have shown up with sandwiches in wax paper.
"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.
Whether the information on chemical hazards comes from magazines, the Web or the playground, many parents are changing their buying habits to try to protect children from what they see as dangers. Information on what exactly is toxic, however, is scant and sometimes conflicting...
...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, according to Dr. Welshons. "The science was there for some time before, but until parents exerted pressure, such as by not buying the toys, they didn't change the formulation," he said.
The same grapevine that encourages parents to stop buying some products can help sales of others. Since August, the Center for Environmental Health, a nonprofit group in Oakland, Calif., has sued 24 lunchbox makers and retailers, after their vinyl lunchboxes were found by two independent labs to contain lead. E-mail messages flew from parent to parent.
Cool Tote, a company in Sparks, Nev., that makes lead-free nylon and cloth lunchboxes, found an immediate increase in sales on its Web site. "We started getting a lot more interesting to people," said Bruce Clancy, the chief executive. Another site, Reusablebags.com also started to offer the product line and now sells about 100 Cool Tote lunch bags a week....
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Top Story - Plastic Bottles
The Christian Science Monitor, 10.4.04
There's a plastic explosion going on in the United States. In 1990, Americans bought 1.1 billion pounds of plastic in the form of bottles, according to the Container Recycling Institute. In 2002, they bought more than three times that - 4 billion pounds.
America's population has increased only slightly since 1990. And the amount of plastic used in the average beverage container has actually decreased. Why are today's consumers using so much more plastic?
"That increase is not coming from shampoo bottles," says Jenny Gitlitz, a spokeswoman for the Container Recycling Institute. "It's coming primarily from water bottles."
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Top Story - Canada
CBC News, 4.2.07
The northern Manitoba town of Leaf Rapids became the first municipality in Canada to ban plastic shopping bags on April 2, 2007.
"Everybody's on board," Mayor Ed Cherrier told CBC News. "Our Co-op store and Fields, they're really supporting our initiative. And in fact, our Co-op store has offered a challenge to all of Federated to go bag-free across Canada."
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Top Story - ReusableBags.com in the News
New York Times, 4.1.07
Taking Aim At All Those Plastic Bags
By a 10-1 Board of Supervisors’ vote, San Francisco became the first major American city to ban the use of non-biodegradable plastic bags by supermarkets, drug stores and other large retailers.
Yet another alternative is to sell consumers reusable bags.
“The paper versus plastics question takes us off the issue, which is consumption,” says Vincent Cobb, who offers reusable bags and containers on the Internet. “Getting into the habit of bringing your own shopping bag,” he says, “can slash this problem across the board.”
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Top Story - ReusableBags.com in the News
MSNBC.com, 3.8.07
...As a country, the United States throws away approximately 100 billion polyethylene plastic bags a year—less than 1 percent are recycled, the Worldwatch Institute reports. Despite the fact that just about any plastic bag brought home from the supermarket is reusable (and can take 1,000 years to degrade, according to the Environmental Protection Agency), the average family accumulates 60 of them in just four trips to the grocery store, according to reusablebags.com. (IKEA’s 59-cent Big Blue Bag is made of plastic, but “it would take 1,000 uses for it to be unusable,” according to their spokesperson.)
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Top Story - Plastic Bottles
CNN.com, 2.27.07
Independent experts convened by the National Institutes of Health will meet next week to review whether exposure to a chemical commonly found in plastic products like food containers and baby bottles causes health problems.
Separately, an environmental group said new laboratory tests at the University of Missouri found that the chemical, bisphenol A, leached into liquids at potentially dangerous levels from baby bottles sold by five leading brands.
Bisphenol A, also called BPA, is used in making polycarbonate plastic food and drink packaging.
There has been controversy over its safety. Industry views it as harmless. Environmentalists link it to developmental, neural and reproductive harm when ingested...
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Top Story - Asia
news.gov.hk, 12.5.06
Thanks to the wide support of major supermarket and retail chains, the 'No plastic bag day' campaign will be extended to 2007.
The Environmental Protection Department said the patrons include Wellcome, Park n Shop, China Resources Vanguard, Watsons, Mannings, 7-Eleven, Circle-K, DCH Food Marts, City' Super, A-1 Bakery and ThreeSixty. They promised to have the campaign at least once a month.
Since June, more than 30 major supermarket and retail chains have joined the voluntary scheme to reduce the indiscriminate use of plastic shopping bags.According to a Green Student Council customer survey, participating retailers distributed an average of more than 40% fewer plastic bags on 'No plastic bag days'.
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Top Story - Asia
news.gov.hk, 11.29.06
Supermarkets have handed out 80 million fewer plastic bags since the launch of the voluntary pact on plastic-bag reduction, Secretary for the Environment, Transport & Works Dr Sarah Liao says. The three major supermarket chains have achieved 24-29% cuts, far above their 15% target.
To reduce the indiscriminate use of plastic shopping bags, Dr Liao said a study report on a plastic shopping bag levy - including its feasibility, options, level of charge and scope, the environmental benefits of various options and their impact on the trades - will be completed by the end of this year.
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Top Story - Great Britain
icWales.co.uk, 11.27.06
The Keep Wales Tidy group has hit back at claims that banning plastic bags from Welsh supermarkets would have undesirable consequences. Recently the Carrier Bag Consortium, representing bag manufacturers, criticised Environment Minister Carwyn Jones for suggesting such a ban.
Keep Wales Tidy chief executive Tegryn Jones responded, "In the Republic of Ireland, where there is now a tax on plastic bags, there is no evidence there were job losses. The few jobs depending on the plastic bag industry in Wales that could conceivably be lost would be more than compensated for by other employment opportunities.
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Top Story - Great Britain
Times Online, 11.11.06
A tax has cleared the Republic of Ireland’s streets and countryside of discarded plastic bags.
In spring 2002 plastic-bag litter was effectively killed off by a levy of 15 euro cents for every bag handed out. In five months, the use of plastic bags was slashed by more than 90 per cent.
The Irish environment ministry estimates that the “plastax” brings in €10 million (£6.7 million) a year, which is being spent on environmental projects.
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Top Story - Africa
BBC News, 11.10.06
Zanzibar's ban on the import and production of plastic bags has come into effect.
Authorities on the semi-autonomous Tanzanian islands say discarded bags damage the marine environment and hurt its crucial tourism industry. But the BBC's Ally Saleh in Zanzibar says many people are sceptical about whether the ban will be enforced.
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Top Story - Africa
Botswana Press Agency, 11.7.06
A ban on the use of plastic bags will effect on February 1, forcing shoppers to either provide their own bags or pay for the new-style thicker recyclable bags.
Wildlife, environment and tourism minister Mr Kitso Mokaila said in an interview that the new law aims to protect the environment.
Plastic waste is the most visible and a major concern because it has environmental implications and there is need for us to manage the problem, he said.
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Top Story - Stories in the US
Californians Against Waste, 9.30.06
California Governor Schwarzenegger signed Assembly Bill 2449 (sponsored by Levine) on September 30, 2006 to implement a statewide plastic bag recycling program.
From the Governor’s Signing Message:
“While this bill may not go as far as some local environmental groups and cities may have hoped, this program will make progress to reduce plastics in our environment. This measure requires every retail establishment that provides its customers plastic bags to have an in store plastic bag recycling program, a public awareness program promoting bag recycling, post recycling requirements, record keeping and penalties.”
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Top Story - Asia
Japan For Sustainability, 8.16.06
The Japan Franchise Association announced on May 29, 2006 that 12 major operators of convenience stores have set up five-year plans to reduce the consumption of plastic bags. Starting on June 1, 2006, they will eventually reduce the total consumption in each store by 35 percent by 2010, as compared with 2000 levels.
They are driving forward the reduction plan by such specific measures as; asking customers buying fewer items to have store stickers placed on them instead of having them packed in plastic bags (the stickers indicate that the item has been paid for); and promoting simpler packaging by in-store announcements and/or posters.
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Top Story - ReusableBags.com in the News
KCRA.com, 5.8.06
SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- The Center for Environmental Health in Oakland announced last year that it was suing the makers of some soft vinyl lunchboxes for exposing children to harmful levels of lead, and now the center is celebrating a groundbreaking agreement.
But there still may be risk to children.
Marie Versteeg of Lodi said she was surprised to learn last fall that her son Jackson's lunchbox contained the substance commonly known as lead.
"It's just something that you wouldn't think about in your child's lunchbox," Versteeg said...
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Top Story - ReusableBags.com in the News
Eagle Tribune, MA, 4.19.06
Perhaps you don't have time to attend an Earth Day celebration on Saturday. Perhaps your daily schedule doesn't allow time for stopping global warming, cleaning up the world's polluted lakes and streams, and protecting endangered species...
An estimated 380 billion plastic bags are consumed in the United States each year. About 100 billion of those are plastic grocery bags, according to the statistics compilers at ReusableBags.com. Plastic grocery bags end up in the bellies of sea turtles and whales, and retailers spend an estimated $4 billion a year on bags.
Paper bags are no better. They require four times as much energy as plastic bags to manufacture and, in one year alone, 14 million trees were chopped down to supply the nation with 10 billion paper grocery bags.
The solution is to reuse bags.
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Top Story - Tales of the Weird
Bloomberg, 10.3.05
Plastic will survive forever in landfill, or, if it is burnt, as it is in Japan, it can release toxic and carcinogenic particles into the atmosphere.
But a small Australian company called Plantic says it has a solution just add water and the problem will disappear.
The patented formula comprises 90 per cent cornstarch and other organic materials like water, fatty acid and oil.
Starch-based plastics are not new, Plantic’s Business Development Manager Mark Fink says, but Plantic is different.
"If I do this," he says pouring water on the product, "and count to three it starts to disappear, which is exciting."
But if you think a disappearing plastic is hard to swallow, have you ever tried eating normal plastic? because you can eat Plantic.
"If it (Plantic) is eaten, it’s not harmful," says Fink.
"But we don’t produce it as a food product, so for that reason we don’t eat it in public and we prefer not to promote it as an edible material," he says.
Plantic conforms to European standard of biodegradability and when placed on the compost heap, it will disappear within three months releasing water into the soil and carbon dioxide into the Air.
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Top Story - Plastic Bottles
MARLA CONE /s Los Angeles Times, 4.13.05
Evidence is mounting that a chemical in plastic that is one of the world's most widely used industrial compounds may be risky in the small amounts that seep from bottles and food packaging, according to a report to be published this week in a scientific journal.
The authors of the report, who reviewed more than 100 studies, urged the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to re-evaluate the risks of bisphenol A and consider restricting its use.
Bisphenol A, or BPA, has been detected in nearly all humans tested in the U.S. It is a key building block in the manufacture of hard, clear polycarbonate plastics, including baby bottles, water bottles and other food and beverage containers. The chemical can leach from the plastic, especially when the containers are heated, cleaned with harsh detergents or exposed to acidic foods or drinks.
The chemical is the focus of a contentious debate involving industrial compounds that can mimic sex hormones. Toxicologists say that exposure to man-made hormones skews the developing reproductive systems and brains of newborn animals and could be having the same effects on human fetuses and young children.
Since the late 1990s, some experiments have found no effects at the doses of BPA that people are exposed to, and others have suggested that the chemical mimics estrogen, blocks testosterone and harms lab animals at low doses. Plastics industry representatives say the trace amounts that migrate from some products pose no danger and are far below safety thresholds set by the EPA and other agencies.
In the new report, to be published online in Environmental Health Perspectives on Thursday, scientists Frederick vom Saal and Claude Hughes say that as of December, 115 studies have been published examining low doses of the chemical, and 94 of them found harmful effects.
In an interview Tuesday, Vom Saal, a reproductive biologist at University of Missouri in Columbia, said there is now an "overwhelming weight of evidence" that the plastics compound is harmful.
"This is a snowball running down a hill, where the evidence is accumulating at a faster and faster rate," Vom Saal said...
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Ventura County Star, 1.14.07
Recycling plastic bags is about to become easier in California as retailers begin complying with a new California law, Assembly Bill 2449, that requires certain stores to accept used plastic bags for recycling. Most grocery stores and other large retailers will have to provide drop-off options for plastic bag recycling.
At less than 1 percent of the total waste stream, plastic bags might seem like a trivial portion to deserve such attention Its effect on business and the environment, is the real reason bags were targeted by the state legislators: statewide, the most common kind of violation at solid waste facilities is litter blowing off piles, and the most common type of litter at landfills and waste processing centers is plastic bags.
Ventura County Star
news.gov.hk, 1.5.07
Thanks to the wide support of major supermarket and retail chains, the 'No plastic bag day' campaign will be extended to 2007.
The Environmental Protection Department said the patrons include Wellcome, Park n Shop, China Resources Vanguard, Watsons, Mannings, 7-Eleven, Circle-K, DCH Food Marts, City' Super, A-1 Bakery and ThreeSixty. They promised to have the campaign at least once a month.
Since June, more than 30 major supermarket and retail chains have joined the voluntary scheme to reduce the indiscriminate use of plastic shopping bags.According to a Green Student Council customer survey, participating retailers distributed an average of more than 40% fewer plastic bags on 'No plastic bag days'.
news.gov.hk
Voice of America, 12.10.06
The city of Paris has decided to ban non-biodegradable plastic bags in large stores as of 2007, in an effort to cut down on pollution.
Experts say these disposable bags account for 8,000 tons of waste generated in Paris each year, at a cost of more than $2 million. Yves Contassot, the man responsible for environment and waste at the Paris city hall, says plastic bags are just one lesson about the dangers of overpackaging, and of using petroleum-based products to make these non-renewable bags. Parisians need to economize resources by managing them better, Contassot says. It's a question of environmental responsibility.
VOA News
Reuters, 11.5.06
There is a vast vortex of plastic trash in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, threatening sea creatures that get tangled in it, eat it or ride on it, a new report says.
The report, by international environmental group Greenpeace, "Plastic Debris in the World's Oceans," said at least 267 species are known to have suffered from entanglement or ingestion of marine debris. Some 80 percent of this debris comes from land and 20 percent from the oceans, the report said, with four main sources: tourism, sewage, fishing and waste from ships and boats.
The new report comes days after the journal Science projected that Earth's stocks of fish and seafood would collapse by 2048 if trends in overfishing and pollution continue.
Because plastic doesn't break down the way organic material does, ocean currents and tides have carried it thousands of miles to an area between Hawaii and the U.S. West Coast, according to the study.
Reuters article
Californians Against Waste, 9.30.06
California Governor Schwarzenegger signed Assembly Bill 2449 (sponsored by Levine) on September 30, 2006 to implement a statewide plastic bag recycling program.
From the Governor’s Signing Message:
“While this bill may not go as far as some local environmental groups and cities may have hoped, this program will make progress to reduce plastics in our environment. This measure requires every retail establishment that provides its customers plastic bags to have an in store plastic bag recycling program, a public awareness program promoting bag recycling, post recycling requirements, record keeping and penalties.”
Californians Against Waste
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