Plastic panic
GEETA PADMANABHAN
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Plastic garbage chokes everything in sight. Is there any way to stop this menace?
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AFP
We know memories are short — but our amnesia about plastic bags would shock anyone. Have we stopped using the thin ones that are banned? No. I found them strewn all over Tamil Nadu, even in the interior villages. In most places around the globe plastic bags are a big environmental worry. But the Irish Government decided to do something about it. Shop at Garvey's Supervalue in the picturesque Irish village of Dingle and you'll know what. At the checkout counter, the assistant won't pack your stuff in bags unless you pay for them — I mean the bags.
The practice has caught on in villages, towns and cities throughout Ireland. In just 17 months, there has been a stunning drop in the use of the killer bags that choked the country's narrow lanes, quiet rivers and winding highways.
The Irish Environment Department says shoppers used around 1.2 billion plastic bags per year before the tax was imposed in March 2002. Since then, the use has dropped by around 95 per cent. What the Government collects through the sale of bags goes for recycling programmes. Plastic bags now form only 0.3 per cent of the total garbage collected. It was five per cent before the tax.
In Australia, the government is looking into the Irish system to reduce plastic bag litter by 75 per cent. Bangladesh wants to ban plastic bags from the capital, Dhaka. A year ago, South Africa made it illegal for shops to offer flimsy plastic shopping bags, sarcastically called the "national flower" because they are found all around the country. Shopkeepers in South African towns offer the more ecologically friendly polypropylene bags or thicker plastic bags that are economical to recycle. Travellers in India have pointed this out again and again.
There is plastic garbage everywhere. Even near temples and historic monuments. The reasons for this menace are the same the world over. Explosive economic growth, followed by an increase in consumption, garbage and illegal landfills.
But that still does not explain why people simply throw the plastic bags on the road knowing very well it will choke everything in sight. It took 12 years of campaigning to persuade the Irish Government to impose the levy.
"It's been a huge success because people didn't need to take all these bags," he said.
Of course, some tourists are unhappy they have to pay or find some other method to carry groceries. Do you think asking customers to pay for the bags will work in India?
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