On Nov 13, 3:48 am, Des Higgins wrote:
On Nov 13, 10:01 am, "Miles - Nature" wrote:



"Bob Hobden" wrote in message

... Interesting site about Modbury, the town that has banned plastic bags.
The video of a speech by Ray Anderson on the "Why and How to" page is
excellent.
http://www.plasticbagfree.com/index.php

and if anyone thinks this is OT for this ng check out the site.
--
Regards
Bob Hobden
17mls W. of London.UK

There is an awful load of rubbish being spread about - about rubbish.
First the website spends a long time wailing about all the plastic in the
world.
Straw man. It's only the plastic bags that are this issue.
I wonder if there are any facts available on the effectiveness of projects
like
this. My suspicion is that they are ways some people try to assuage their
guilt about their useage of resources.
Take Christmas for example. How many of the people involved in that project
will buy more plastic in one set of Christmas presents than a whole years
useage
of plastic bags?

The average number of plastic bags that one family goes through per
week is surprisingly high (maybe a dozen; maybe more; I do not have
the number to hand).
Multiply it up across a country and it becomes staggering. In
Ireland, we had a dreadful litter problem from them and we simply
banned them (banned giving them away free; you are allowed to sell
them; it is s small cost; maybe 20cents; I cannot remember as I have
not bought one in years). It worked overnight. It still does not
cure cancer or fix all the other dreadful things we are doing to the
environment but it was an easy fix that stopped this particular lot of
waste. You are right in saying that it could lead to complacency
(e.g. "well that's all fixed now" mentality) but it was still worth
doing.

How many of them take their kids to school in a car when 15 minutes less
sleep
would give them time to walk them to school? How many have 4 by 4 vehicles,
never used for what they are designed, but to provide a fearful owner the
false
sense of protection from collision?
How many have a place in Europe, and are frequent fliers?
When all this is answered, it will still be a useless effort to leave well
meaning people
to be careful about their carbon footprint and prudence when using
materials.

Only governments have the power to force selfish people to behave sensibly.

I used to get that many (a dozen) every time I shopped. Plus half a
dozen cardboard boxes for frozen foods I grab out of the hands of the
floor-stockers before they can cut them up for compacting / resale
back to the paper industry.

I don't feel guilty, because the store where I turn the plastic bags
in (which also just sold me 4 lifetime-warranty fiber shopping bags,
total cost $2.19) --recycles the returned plastic bags into park-type
benches. The best of both worlds.
(And I still use the occasional plastic grocery-bag to line my food-
waste, aluminum can, paper-recycling, etc, trash cans.)