A plastic bag or pouch is a type of flexible packaging made of thin, flexible, plastic film. Plastic bags are used for containing and transporting foods, produce, powders, ice, chemicals, waste, etc. Most are heat sealed together. Some are bonded with adhesives or are stitched. A press-to-close zipper can be used to open and close the bag many times.

Bags or pouches are a type of packaging for containing frozen food, fresh produce, snack foods, hardware, gardening products, etc. They are often made from a single roll of film on a horizontal or vertical form fill sealing machine. Several design options and features are available. Some bags have gussets to allow a higher volume of contents. Some have the ability to stand up on a shelf or a refrigerator. Some have easy-opening or reclosable options. Handles are cut into or added onto some. Bag-In-Box packaging is often used for liquids such as wine and institutional sizes of other liquids. Plastic bags usually use less material than comparable boxes, cartons, or jars, thus are often considered as "reduced or minimized packaging"

Depending on the construction, plastic bags can be well suited for plastic recycling. They can be incinerated in appropriate facilities for waste-to-energy conversion. They are stable and benign in sanitary landfills.

If disposed of improperly, however, plastic bags can create unsightly litter and harm some types of wildlife.

Open bags with carrying handles are used in large numbers worldwide. Stores often provide them as a convenience to shoppers. Some stores charge a nominal fee for a bag. Heavy duty multiple-use shopping bags are often considered environmentally better than single-use paper or plastic shopping bags. When possible, single-use bags should be recycled or reused as trash bags, storage bags, etc. Responsible solid waste usage is encouraged. Used bags should not be littered. this can be unsightly and damage wildlife, and sea life.

Thin plastic bags, especially dry cleaning bags, have the potential for causing suffocation. About 25 children in the United States suffocate each year due to plastic bags, most under the age of one year. This has led to voluntary warning labels on some bags which may pose a hazard when placed on a baby bed.

The most ubiquitous consumer item on Earth, the lowly plastic bag is an environmental scourge like none other, sapping the life out of our oceans and thwarting our attempts to recycle it. By Katharine Mieszkowski

Aug. 10, 2007 | OAKLAND, Calif. -- On a foggy Tuesday morning, kids out of school for summer break are learning to sail on the waters of Lake Merritt. A great egret hunts for fish, while dozens of cormorants perch, drying their wings. But we're not here to bird-watch or go boating. Twice a week volunteers with the Lake Merritt Institute gather on these shores of the nation's oldest national wildlife refuge to fish trash out of the water, and one of their prime targets is plastic bags. Armed with gloves and nets with long handles, like the kind you'd use to fish leaves out of a backyard swimming pool, we take to the shores to seek our watery prey. Dr. Richard Bailey, executive director of the institute, is most concerned about the bags that get waterlogged and sink to the bottom. "We have a lot of animals that live on the bottom. shrimp, shellfish, sponges," he says. "It's like you're eating at your dinner table and somebody comes along and throws a plastic tarp over your dinner table and you."

This morning, a turtle feeds serenely next to a half submerged Walgreens bag. The bag looks ghostly, ethereal even, floating, as if in some kind of purgatory suspended between its briefly useful past and its none-too-promising future. A bright blue bags floats just out of reach, while a duck cruises by. Here's a Ziploc bag, there a Safeway bag. In a couple of hours, I fish more than two dozen plastic bags out of the lake with my net, along with cigarette butts, candy wrappers and a soccer ball. As we work, numerous passersby on the popular trail that circles the urban lake shout their thanks, which is an undeniable boost. Yet I can't help being struck that our efforts represent a tiny drop in the ocean. If there's one thing we know about these plastic bags, it's that there are billions and billions more where they came from. The plastic bag is an icon of convenience culture, by some estimates the single most ubiquitous consumer item on Earth, numbering in the trillions. They're made from petroleum or natural gas with all the attendant environmental impacts of harvesting fossil fuels. One recent study found that the inks and colorants used on some bags contain lead, a toxin. Every year, Americans throw away some 100 billion plastic bags after they've been used to transport a prescription home from the drugstore or a quart of milk from the grocery store. It's equivalent to dumping nearly 12 million barrels of oil. Only 1 percent of plastic bags are recycled worldwide -- about 2 percent in the U. S. -- and the rest, when discarded, can persist for centuries. They can spend eternity in landfills, but that's not always the case. "They're so aerodynamic that even when they're properly disposed of in a trash can they can still blow away and become litter," says Mark Murray, executive director of Californians Against Waste. It's as litter that plastic bags have the most baleful effect. And we're not talking about your everyday eyesore.

Once aloft, stray bags cartwheel down city streets, alight in trees, billow from fences like flags, clog storm drains, wash into rivers and bays and even end up in the ocean, washed out to sea. Bits of plastic bags have been found in the nests of albatrosses in the remote Midway Islands. Floating bags can look all too much like tasty jellyfish to hungry marine critters. According to the Blue Ocean Society for Marine Conservation, more than a million birds and 100,000 marine mammals and sea turtles die every year from eating or getting entangled in plastic. The conservation group estimates that 50 percent of all marine litter is some form of plastic. There are 46,000 pieces of plastic litter floating in every square mile of ocean, according to the United Nations Environment Programme. In the Northern Pacific Gyre, a great vortex of ocean currents, there's now a swirling mass of plastic trash about 1,000 miles off the coast of California, which spans an area that's twice the size of Texas, including fragments of plastic bags. There's six times as much plastic as biomass, including plankton and jellyfish, in the gyre. "It's an endless stream of incessant plastic particles everywhere you look," says Dr. Marcus Eriksen, director of education and research for the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, which studies plastics in the marine environment. "Fifty or 60 years ago, there was no plastic out there." Following the lead of countries like Ireland, Bangladesh, South Africa, Thailand and Taiwan, some U. S. cities are striking back against what they see as an expensive, wasteful and unnecessary mess. This year, San Francisco and Oakland outlawed the use of plastic bags in large grocery stores and pharmacies, permitting only paper bags with at least 40 percent recycled content or otherwise compostable bags. The bans have not taken effect yet, but already the city of Oakland is being sued by an association of plastic bag manufacturers calling itself the Coalition to Support Plastic Bag Recycling. Meanwhile, other communities across the country, including Santa Monica, Calif., New Haven, Conn., Annapolis, Md., and Portland, Ore., are considering taking drastic legislative action against the bags. In Ireland, a now 22-cent tax on plastic bags has slashed their use by more than 90 percent since 2002. In flood-prone Bangladesh, where plastic bags choked drainage systems, the bags have been banned since 2002. The problem with plastic bags isn't just where they end up, it's that they never seem to end. "All the plastic that has been made is still around in smaller and smaller pieces," says Stephanie Barger, executive director of the Earth Resource Foundation, which has undertaken a Campaign Against the Plastic Plague. Plastic doesn't biodegrade. That means unless they've been incinerated -- a noxious proposition -- every plastic bag you've ever used in your entire life, including all those bags that the newspaper arrives in on your doorstep, even on cloudless days when there isn't a sliver of a chance of rain, still exists in some form, even fragmented bits, and will exist long after you're dead. Next page. The utter pain of recycling the damn things

Two words. Bad plasticScientists now fear a chemical used in baby bottles and CDs, food cans and dental sealants, can disrupt fetal development and even lead to obesity.

Most Popular Sizes of printed plastic bags for Conferences are. 15 x 18 plastic bag printed 100 @ .35 ea

Most Popular Sizes of printed plastic bags for Beauty Salons are. 12 x 15 plastic bag printed 100 @ .28 ea 8 x 12 plastic bag printed 100 @ .27 ea

Most Popular Sizes of printed plastic bags for Trade Shows are. 15 x 18 plastic bag printed 100 @ .35 ea 17 x 21 plastic bag printed 100 @ .39 ea

The "paper or plastic" conundrum that vexed earnest shoppers throughout the 1980s and 90s is largely moot today. Most grocery store baggers don't bother to ask anymore. They drop the bananas in one plastic bag as they reach for another to hold the six-pack of soda. The pasta sauce and noodles will get one too, as will the dish soap. Plastic bags are so cheap to produce, sturdy, plentiful, easy to carry and store that they have captured at least 80 percent of the grocery and convenience store market since they were introduced a quarter century ago, according to the Arlington, Virginia-based American Plastics Council.

As a result, the totes are everywhere. They sit balled up and stuffed into the one that hangs from the pantry door. They line bathroom trash bins. They carry clothes to the gym. They clutter landfills. They flap from trees. They float in the breeze. They clog roadside drains. They drift on the high seas. They fill sea turtle bellies. "The numbers are absolutely staggering," said Vincent Cobb, an entrepreneur in Chicago, Illinois, who recently launched the Web site to educate the public about what he terms the "true costs" associated with the spread of "free" bags. He sells reusable bags as a viable solution. According to Cobb's calculations extrapolated from data released by the United States Environmental Protection Agency in 2001 on U. S. plastic bag, sack, and wrap consumption, somewhere between 500 billion and a trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide each year. Of those, millions end up in the litter stream outside of landfillsestimates range from less than one to three percent of the bags. Laurie Kusek, a spokeswoman for the American Plastics Council, said the industry works with its U. S. retail customers to encourage recycling of plastic bags, which are in high demand from companies such as Trex in Winchester, Virginia, for use in building materials. "We also feel it is important to understand that plastic grocery bags are some of the most reused items around the house," she said. "Many, many bags are reused as book and lunch bags as kids head off to school, as trash can liners, and to pickup Fido's droppings off the lawn." But like candy wrappers, chewing gum, cigarette butts, and thousands of other pieces of junk, millions of the plastic bags end up as litter. Once in the environment, it takes months to hundreds of years for plastic bags to breakdown. As they decompose, tiny toxic bits seep into soils, lakes, rivers, and the oceans, said Cobb. Plastic Fantastic The Film and Bag Federation, a trade group within the Society of the Plastics Industry based in Washington, D. C., said the right choice between paper or plastic bags is clearly plastic. Compared to paper grocery bags, plastic grocery bags consume 40 percent less energy, generate 80 percent less solid waste, produce 70 percent fewer atmospheric emissions, and release up to 94 percent fewer waterborne wastes, according to the federation. Robert Bateman, president of Roplast Industries, a manufacturer of plastic bagsincluding reusable onesin Oroville, California, said the economic advantage of plastic bags over paper bags has become too significant for store owners to ignore. It costs one cent for a standard plastic grocery sack, whereas a paper bag costs four cents, he said.

Plastic shopping bags are among the most ubiquitous consumer items on Earth. Their light weight, low cost, and water resistance make them so convenient for carrying groceries, clothing, and other routine purchases that its hard to imagine life without them. Weighing just a few grams and averaging a few millimeters in thickness, plastic bags might seem thoroughly innocuouswere it not for the sheer number produced. Factories around the world churned out a whopping 4-5 trillion of them in 2002, ranging from large trash bags to thick shopping totes to flimsy grocery sacks. Compared with paper bags, producing plastic ones uses less energy and water and generates less air pollution and solid waste. Plastic bags also take up less space in a landfill. But many of these bags never make it to landfills. instead, they go airborne after they are discardedgetting caught in fences, trees, even the throats of birds, and clogging gutters, sewers, and waterways. To avoid these impacts, the best alternative is to carry and re-use your own durable cloth bags.

Plastic bags start as crude oil, natural gas, or other petrochemical derivatives, which are transformed into chains of hydrogen and carbon molecules known as polymers or polymer resin. After being heated, shaped, and cooled, the plastic is ready to be flattened, sealed, punched, or printed on. The first plastic baggies for bread, sandwiches, fruits, and vegetables were introduced in the United States in 1957. Plastic trash bags started appearing in homes and along curbsides around the world by the late 1960s. North America and Western Europe account for nearly 80 percent of plastic bag usethough the bags are increasingly common in developing countries as well. A quarter of the plastic bags used in wealthy nations are now produced in Asia. Each year, Americans throw away some 100 billion polyethylene plastic bags. (Only 0.6 percent of plastic bags are recycled.)The Irish have been known to call the ever-present bags their national flag. South Africans have dubbed them the national flower.

In January 2002, the South African government required manufacturers to make plastic bags more durable and more expensive to discourage their disposalprompting a 90-percent reduction in use. Ireland instituted a 15¢-per-bag tax in March 2002, which led to a 95-percent reduction in use. In the early 1990s, the Ladakh Womens Alliance and other citizens groups led a successful campaign to ban plastic bags in that Indian province, where the first of May is now celebrated as Plastic Ban Day. Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the Philippines, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom also have plans to ban or tax plastic bags. Supermarkets around the world are voluntarily encouraging shoppers to forgo plastic bagsor to bring their own bagsby offering a small per-bag refund or charging extra for plastic. Some manufacturers have introduced biodegradable or compostable plastic bags made from starches, polymers or poly-lactic acid, and no polyethylenethough these remain prohibitively expensive and account for less than 1 percent of the market. The organizers of the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia, were able to collect 76 percent of the food waste generated at the sports venues and athletes village by using biodegradable utensils and plastic bags that composted as easily as the food and eliminated the need to separate the garbage.

Think twice about taking a plastic bag if your purchase is small and easy to carry. Keep canvas bags in your home, office, and car so you always have them available when you go to the supermarket or other stores. Ask your favorite stores to stop providing bags for free, or to offer a discount for not using the bags. Encourage your local politicians to introduce legislation taxing or banning plastic bags.

Try to go at least one week without accumulating any new plastic bags. If every shopper took just one less bag each month, this could eliminate the waste of hundreds of millions of bags each year.

The Film and Bag Federation (FBF) is a business unit of the Society of the Plastics Industry, Inc. (SPI) that actively promotes the growth of the plastic film and bag industry. The SPI is the only trade association that represents all segments of our industry and the FBF is the only group that speaks for the plastic film and bag industry on both nationaland regionallevels. FBF membership includes companies that are in the plastic bag segment of the industry as well as those in the film sector.

Contact your state's lawmakers concerning plastic bag legislation. SPI's Political Action Center provides ready-made tools that make it easy for you to voice your pro-bag opinion to your elected representatives.

The Society of the Plastics Industry, Inc. Film and Bag Federation 1667 K Street, NW, Suite 1000 Washington, DC us. us. tel | us. fax 2007 The Society of the Plastics Industry, Inc. All rights reserved.

) bags. 2.14 billion of these came from supermarkets, while the others were used by fast food restaurants, service stations, convenience stores and liquor stores and other shops. Plastic bags are popular with consumers and retailers as they are a functional, lightweight, strong, cheap, and hygienic way to transport food and other products. Most of these go to landfill (rubbish tips) after they are used, and some are recycled. In 2002 around 50 to 80million bags ended up as litter in our environment. While the number littered has probably been reduced since then, it is likely that a large number still enter the environment. Once littered, plastic bags can find their way on to our streets, parks, and into our waterways. Although plastic bags make up only a small percentage of all litter, the impact of these bags is nevertheless significant. Plastic bags create visual pollution problems and can have harmful effects on aquatic and terrestrial animals. Plastic bags are particularly noticeable components of the litter stream due to their size and can take a long time to fully break down. The Australian Government is working with industry and the community to reduce the environmental impact of plastic bags. However, everyone shares some responsibility for this problem - from plastic bag manufacturers and importers who sell the bags, shop keepers who give them away, and the customers who use them. It is up to all of us to help find the solution. In recent years, many people have started to use reusable bags, such as the 'green bags' you can buy at most supermarkets. Because of these efforts, the number of

) bags. 2.14 billion of these came from supermarkets, while the others were used by fast food restaurants, service stations, convenience stores and liquor stores and other shops. Plastic bags are popular with consumers and retailers as they are a functional, lightweight, strong, cheap, and hygienic way to transport food and other products. Most of these go to landfill (rubbish tips) after they are used, and some are recycled. In 2002 around 50 to 80million bags ended up as litter in our environment. While the number littered has probably been reduced since then, it is likely that a large number still enter the environment. Once littered, plastic bags can find their way on to our streets, parks, and into our waterways. Although plastic bags make up only a small percentage of all litter, the impact of these bags is nevertheless significant. Plastic bags create visual pollution problems and can have harmful effects on aquatic and terrestrial animals. Plastic bags are particularly noticeable components of the litter stream due to their size and can take a long time to fully break down. The Australian Government is working with industry and the community to reduce the environmental impact of plastic bags. However, everyone shares some responsibility for this problem - from plastic bag manufacturers and importers who sell the bags, shop keepers who give them away, and the customers who use them. It is up to all of us to help find the solution. In recent years, many people have started to use reusable bags, such as the 'green bags' you can buy at most supermarkets. Because of these efforts, the number of

Plastic Bag Phase-Out Has Started It's governments' intention to phase-out the lightweight plastic carry bags used by many retailers by the end of 2008. Many retailers have already started to make the change away from these types of bags. Find out more here.

There Are Alternatives You can choose from a range of affordable plastic bag alternatives that help protect the environment and provide added benefits for your business. Find out more here.

The leading lights of the ban the bag campaigns have got together to make a book. It's full of useful facts and tips to help you make your campaign against plastic bags successful. - Check it out!

Well we're not that suprised. Supermarkets as we know, could have put a stop to this nonsense a long time ago, but they continue to drag out he death of the plastic bag for their own reasons. This week I was contacted by someone in Bristol, upset about what Sainsburys claims it's doing and what we see in practice.. I think Sainsburys are making statements that are not true. The shop on the triangle, like other sainsburys, has cards and posters up saying that they will have removed plastic bags from the counter in an effor to reduce the amount they use. It also says on their website that 'From Wednesday 1 October we'll be removing free bags from our checkouts to encourage bag re-use. Customers who still require carrier bags will now need to ask for one.' However, at busy times, this is not happening. Bags are still lying on the checkout counter for people to pick up and use freely. Additionally, customers are still being offered plastic bags, rather than having to ask for them. I did mention to one of the counter staff that she should maybe remove the bags from the counter as the poster beside her till said so, but she just told me to talk to the manager. This is the link to their website. Sainsburys has sought good publicity from this initiative, and I feel that they are not being truthful as, in practice, they are not doing what they claim to be doing. If you would like to contact them about this. Telephone. 0800 636262 By post. Sainsbury's Supermarkets Ltd 33 Holborn London EC1N 2HT If you see this happening and don't like it - don't shop at Sainsburys.

There's a news story doing the rounds (see 'Supermarkets clash with Benn on plastic bags') that says that the supermarkets are upset at the government plans to impose a plastic bag tax should the supermarkets 'voluntary' code not produce results. How did this upset manifest itself? Go on guess?.. (not - ) Suprisingly it was in the form of a threat! The government will risk losing the co-operation of the supermarkets in future voluntary agreements. And how well has this voluntary arrangement served us? Sir Terry of Tesco said in this 2006 article in the Guardian that Tesco is good at marketing, which can sell the concept. Meaning they could sell the concept of people moving away from plastic carriers. Bear that in mind when you read that Tesco said its usage is down 40 per cent (Businessgreen. com 26 June 08) I think Tesco is just good at marketing! What 'down 40%' doesn't tell you, is that even if we had this made this reduction on day one of their 2006 pledge, then by now, they would only have given away 4.8 billion environmentally dangerous bags (and counting!) in the last 2 years. They're doing it for our good remember. In contrast, if anyone had listed to us and Abolished Plastic Bags 2 years ago then Tesco would have given away 0, zero, zilch, no plastic bags in that time. And it wouldn't have just been Tesco, we would have taken 34 billion environmentally dangerous bags out of the system in that time in the UK. Don't believe the hype, take action now, and shop elsewhere!

That's it.I'm moving to Banchory! (Check the blog at. First because of the great primary school, which has just won a national award for their work on plastic bags. (see previous blog. Banchory Primary gets top award) Well Done! Second, because not only were they campaign of the week recently, but I love this idea.'Stickers for your Steering Wheel' I quote. So many shoppers tell us that they have left their reusable bags in the car, we had 2,000 of these stickers produced and gave them away with the bags. Brilliant!

Campaign of the week is the Banchory bags Campaign up in Scotland. On Saturday they had a day of anti-plastic bag promotion, with volunteers giving away free 'Cleaner Greener Banchory' bags at the St. Ternan's Fair. They've got 69 out of 73 shops to take part and many are displaying posters made by local primary school children. It's a great campaign, with a lot of hard work going into preparing the ground to get people behind the cause. Keep up to date with their progress at.

About 25 mins into last night's Springwatch Coast special on BBC 2, we were treated to a 10 min segment about polition in the seas and around our coasts caused by plastic. Great to see the hard work of the people of Modbury recognised, and to have the plastic bag message re-inforced. You can see the programme again on the BBCiplayer fro the next week. www. bbc. co. uk/springwatch

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 License. Abolish Plastic Bags 2006 - 2008

We've been fighting the massive over-consumption of plastic shopping bags since 2002 and have made a significant impact - inspiring hundreds of news stories and empowering individuals with practical products and activist tools. Endorsements in An Inconvenient Truth and others provide testament to the impact we are making.

Have you ever wondered why some plastic bags are stronger than others? Why bags from clothing stores at the mall tend to be strong and thick, whereas those from your local grocery store are flimsy and thin? And then there are those wispy, clear bags you get back with your dry cleaning. There are many types of plastic bags, all designed for different purposes. The plastics we use today have come a long way since Alexander Parkes first introduced them to the world at London's Great International Exhibition in 1862. Parkes's material was an organic derivative of cellulose that could be molded when heated and then maintained its shape upon cooling. But it wasn't until 1909 that the word plastic was coined. Leo H. Baekeland used the term to describe a new class of materials that included bakelite, a substance he created from coal tar. Bakelite was used to produce many items, including telephones, cameras, and even ashtrays. Although a key component in these items, plastics did not become really popular until after World War I, when petroleum, a more easily processed substance than coal, became readily available. Petroleum and natural gas are the primary sources of the key ingredients in plastic. Plastics are composed of polymers--large molecules consisting of repeating units called monomers. In the case of plastic bags, the repeating units are ethylene, or ethene. When ethylene molecules are polymerized to form polyethylene, they form long chains of carbon atoms in which each carbon also is bonded to two hydrogen atoms. Many kinds of polyethylene can be made from ethylene. Plastic bags typically are made from one of three basic types. high-density polyethylene (HDPE), low-density polyethylene (LDPE), or linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE). Those thick, glossy shopping bags from the mall are LLDPE, while grocery bags are HDPE, and garment bags from the dry cleaner are LDPE. The major difference between these three materials is the degree of branching of the polymer chain. HDPE and LLDPE are composed of linear, unbranched chains, while LDPE chains are branched. Branching can influence a number of physical properties including tensile strength and crystallinity. The more branched a molecule is, the lower is its tensile strength and crystallinity. That's why garment bags from the dry cleaner are so weak and flimsy. They are made from highly branched LDPE. Another difference among these types of plastics is the method in which they are made. HDPE and LLDPE are made by Ziegler-Natta vinyl polymerization, a method that uses a transition-metal catalyst, like TiCl

To initiate polymerization. Karl Ziegler and Giulio Natta received the 1963 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing this method. For a long time, Ziegler-Natta polymerization was the only way to produce linear unbranched polyethylene. Recently, a new way of producing polyethylene has become available. metallocene-catalyzed polymerization. Like the Ziegler-Natta method, the metallocene method uses metal complexes as catalysts and is often used to make novel copolymers. LDPE, the branched polyethylene, is made by a different process called free-radical polymerization. The oldest of the three methods, it uses an initiator molecule like benzoyl peroxide instead of a metal complex. The polymerization starts when the benzoyl peroxide molecules break apart into free radicals. The unpaired electrons of the free radicals attack ethylene's carbon-carbon double bond, forming new free radicals. These then react with other ethylene molecules and so on, forming a chain of single-bonded carbon atoms that grows until the reaction terminates, often when two free radicals join together. What else do plastic bags contain? According to William F. Carroll Jr., a polymer chemist at Occidental Chemical Corp. and president-elect of the American Chemical Society, With the possible exception of a little lubricant to help in extrusion, plastic bags are pretty much just the native polymer. However, different pigments may be added to produce colored bags. Plastic bags have made our lives easier in many ways. Unfortunately, they are often not disposed of properly. We see them blowing around in the streets and they often end up in streams and the oceans. These bags can be dangerous to animals, such as turtles, that ingest them or are strangled by them, especially in marine environments where plastic bags resemble jellyfish and other food items. One solution to this problem is to make degradable bags, such as those from starch. Starch, obtained from corn or potatoes, can be converted into lactic acid, which can be polymerized to the biodegradable plastic known as polylactide. Another solution is to add an ultraviolet-light absorber to make the material degrade when exposed to sunlight. Unfortunately, these solutions can make the plastics more expensive, so they haven't caught on with consumers. Plastics have been around for more than 100 years, and they will be around for many more. Without a doubt, they are extremely useful. But when it comes to shopping, some environmentally conscious consumers prefer to avoid plastic bags, opting instead for paper bags. And some go even further, just reusing the same cloth bag over and over again.

The Photographers' Gallery is inviting people to submit photographs of plastic bags spotted around London and elsewhere. Reminding us of our ability to consume and dispose, this project provides the public with their own platform for visual expression and is part of the Gallery’s continued remit to encourage further audience participation and highlighting photography’s influence in everyday life.

Plastic shopping bags, or carrier bags or plastic grocery bags, are a common type of shopping bag in several countries. Most often these bags are intended for a single use to carry items from a store to a home. reuse for storage or trash is common. Heavier duty plastic shopping bags are suitable for multiple uses as shopping or storage bags.

Plastic was first introduced by Alexander Parkes in 1862, and the name was coined by Leo H Baekeland in 1909.

Plastic bags are often made from polyethylene, which consists of a long chain of monomers called ethylene. Ethylene is derived from natural gas and petroleum, and it wasn’t until 1977 that polyethylene was used in forms of plastic grocery bags.

The real change in grocery bags didn’t start until 1982, when the two of America’s largest grocery companies Safeway and Kroger started replacing paper bags with more affordable plastic bags.

From then on, plastic bags have been our #1 choice of taking our daily groceries from the store, to our vehicles, and finally to our homes.

Plastic shopping bags are usually made of polyethylene. This can be low-density, resin identification code 4, or most often high-density, resin identification code 2. Although not in use today, plastic shopping bags could be made from Polylactic acid (PLA) a biodegradable polymer derived from lactic acid.

This is one form of vegetable-based bioplastic. This material biodegrades quickly under composting conditions and does not leave toxic residue. However, bioplastic can have its own environmental impacts, depending on the way it is produced. Recyclability of this experimental material is unproven. resin identification code 7 is applicable. Bags made of biodegradable polythene film, which decompose when exposed to sun, air, and moisture, and are also suited for composting have been proposed as an alternative to conventional plastic shopping bags. However, they do not readily decompose in a sealed landfill and represent a possible contaminant to plastic recycling operations. Resin identification code 7 is applicable.

Plastic shopping bags have advantages and disadvantages when compared to paper bags. Heavy duty multiple-use shopping bags (usually made of canvas) are often considered environmentally better than single-use paper or plastic shopping bags. Single-use bags can be recycled, or can be reused by individuals as trash bags, storage bags, etc. Biodegradable Plastics Shopping Bags

The United States Environmental Protection Agency says paper bags are worse for the environment than plastic. Plastic bags require much less energy to manufacture, ship and recycle and because of this plastic generates less greenhouse gas. Plastic bags cause less air and water pollution. They compress to a small size in landfills.

The light weight of plastic bags results in fewer atmosphere emissions compared to paper bags if both are land-filled.

Many studies comparing plastic versus paper for shopping bags show that plastic bags have less net environmental effect than paper bags, requiring less energy to produce, transport and recycle. however these studies also note that recycling rates for plastic are significantly lower than for paper.

Plastic bags are made from ethylene, a by-product of natural gas or from naphtha, a by-product of petroleum. Reserves of gas and oil are limited and using them to make bags means they may compete with other end uses.

A sturdy, reusable bag needs only be used 11 times to have a lower environmental impact than using 11 disposable plastic bags (ignoring the small benefit from reusing plastic shopping bags in place of bin bags). Reuse and recycling of plastic bags is encouraged, however reduction of use lessens overall environmental impact. Paper is accepted in most recycling programs while the recycling rate for plastic bags is very low, research from 2000 shows 20 percent of paper bags were recycled, while one percent of plastic bags were recycled.

Responsible solid waste disposal is encouraged. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, only 1% of plastic bags were recycled in 2000 and so great progress was made when in 2006 an almost 500% growth in industry capacity led to a 5% rate.

When one ton of plastic bags is reused as something else other than plastic bags or recycled, the energy equivalent of 11 barrels of oil is saved although most bags are produced from natural gas derived stock.

According to the UK government Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, there are several problems with plastic recycling, and in particular plastic bags.

In Australia shoppers are now encouraged to buy bags called "green bags" which cost about a dollar, but can be reused many times. The bags are coloured depending on the company that sells them. Some "green bags" are insulated for the carrying of hot or cold items. Locally, the town of Coles Bay, Tasmania banned plastic shopping bags in April, 2003.

In early 2008, the Australian Federal Government stated it would consider action that would result in plastic bags being phased out by the end of 2008

The bags each weigh 35grams and are used to wrap many Australian products such as fruits and vegetables. The shopping bags themselves account for 10% or less of the plastic Australian shoppers carry home from supermarkets. In South Australia free single use plastic bags will banned as of the end of 2008.

Plastic shopping bags have been illegal in Bhutan, on the grounds that they make the country less happy.

Alternatives to plastic bags are not being encouraged, segregation of any waste is not currently undertaken and recycling or waste-energy facilities are not available within the country.

Beginning on June 1 2008, China, prohibited the use of ultra-thin plastic bags and required retailers to charge for plastic bags. Stores must clearly mark the price of plastic shopping bags and are banned from tacking that price onto products. The production, sale and use of ultra-thin plastic bags - those less than 0.025 millimeters, or us. inches, thick - are also banned. The State Council calls for "a return to cloth bags and shopping baskets. In this environment, there is a Chinese environmental protection bag manufacturers, they have their own brand. the source of one mind, their company, based in Beijing, the capital of China.

Hong Kong enjoys a set of different laws as one of China's Special Administrative Regions. The city has not prohibited the use of giving out free plastic bags yet even if the problem is of growing concern. Supermarkets play a large role in giving out free plastic bags for their customers. The problem has raised awareness amongst the people when a "No Plastic Bag Day" was launched back in 2006, a campaign co-organized by the Environmental Protection Department and several green groups such as Green Student Council, Friends of the Earth, The Conservancy Association and Green Power. However, as the campaign is voluntary and only takes place on the first Tuesday of each month, it did very little to halt the problem. Government statistics show that the city currently disposes of 23 million bags a day. For a city of almost 7 million, this means an average of 3 bags disposed of per person per day. In December 2007, a Product Eco-responsibility bill was introduced. The bill proposes charging 50 cents HKD per plastic bag, with phase one being implemented in 2009. It is hoped that this bill will not only reduce the plastic bag problem the city faces, but also bring in 100,000,000 HKD per year.

Growing awareness of the ecological impact of plastic bags has led main mass retailers to force customers to buy reusable plastic or non-woven bags. This has been adopted by E. Leclerc on 1996 and soon followed by others. which has managed to improve its image and save itself the purchase of the former plastic bags. Nonfood related retailers such as Cloth tend to prefer to switch to paper bags, allowing them to match the ecological demand and upgrade their image on two aspects. ecology and quality. On May 23, 2003 Corsica has been the first region to ban plastic bag. In most of regions, like Morbihan (since 2006) or Paris,(since 2007), retailers stopped supplying bags. A nationwide ban is scheduled to take effect on 1 January 2010.

In Spain, supermarkets give free plastic bags except some as Día which charge 3 cents per bag. Recently, Spanish Government wants to adopt the National Plan of Integrated Waste which has among its objectives in 2010 to ban plastic bags single-use non-biodegradable. The government of Catalonia issued a law prohibiting the free distribution of plastic bags from January 2009. Shops will decide how much they will charge for plastic bags, and whether to directly charge for them or to apply discounts when customers do not use bags. This decision was criticized both by shops associations, that argue the measure was not discussed enough with them, and by ecologist organizations, that would like the establishment of a minimum price for the bags.

Catalonia is the first Spanish autonomous community to ban free plastic bags. Spain is the leading producer of plastic bags for a single use and the third consumer in Europe. Each year 10,500 million plastic bags are distributed in Spain, with a total weight of 96,000 tons. 62% of plastic bags are reused as garbage bags and 10% are recycled through the yellow containers.

Generally, most German supermarkets charge between 5 and 25 cents per single-use bag, depending on the type of bag. Most shops also offer cloth bags or sturdier, woven plastic bags for about €1, encouraging shoppers to re-use them. Many high-street retail shops will provide bags free of charge. Most people will re-use single-use shopping bags, i. e., for collecting deposit bottles or using them as bin liners.

On March 4, 2002, the Republic of Ireland introduced a €0.15 levy on every plastic shopping bag. This led to a 90% reduction in use of plastic bags and increased use of reusable bags.

The money gathered by the levy was used to raise money for environmental initiatives. Many retailers in Ireland switched to supplying (untaxed) paper bags, or simply stopped supplying bags. Most supermarkets continued to supply plastic bags, subject to the tax. The charge was increased to €0.22 on July 1, 2007. Most supermarkets supply reusable woven bags, or heavy reusable plastic bags for about €1.00

The entire country of Israel has enacted legislation to add a surcharge for every plastic bag. Bags that contain fish, meat, poultry or fresh produce won't incur any charge. Aside from that, every plastic bag given to a customer will incur a charge of 1 NIS which will be shown as a separate item on their receipt. The proposal will also subsidize for 6 months the sale of reusable bags, in order to create public awareness of the law.

In recent years cloth bags have been promoted and sold by some supermarkets as an alternative to plastic bags. In August 2006 the Collingwood community in Golden Bay declared itself shopping bag free by a group of local residents who promoted the idea. In early 2007 a nationwide campaign was kicked off with the aim of introducing a shopping bag levy similar to Ireland's. In the town of Wanaka in the South Island the Bag the Habit Campaign has converted almost 50% of shoppers to say no to plastic bags. This saves around 1,500 plastic bags from ending up in the landfill every day. Wanaka has a permanent population of around 7,000 and visitor numbers of around 600,000. 30% of retail stores are now plastic bag free and Wanaka looks set to have the first plastic bag free supermarket in New Zealand with the 4 Square supermarket committing to removing plastic bags from their operation within 12 months. The end goal is for the town to be plastic bag free and over summer campaigners will be targeting the masses of visitors that come to enjoy the natural beauty of the town.

Mohammed Valli Moosa, the Environment and Tourism Minister of South Africa, jokingly named plastic bags the "national flower" of that country, and worked to introduce a minimum legal thickness of 30 micrometres to increase their cost, reusability, and recyclability. They may not be legally given away to shoppers, and must instead be sold. however this rule is not always enforced strictly.

The littering of plastic shopping bags has created major environmental problems throughout Turkey. Currently, Turkish people use on average 1.2 bags per day each, most of which end up not being disposed of properly. The government has launched a feasibility study into the movement towards envirobags. however, this is not due until late 2008. However, Turkey has made the most success over the past time.

In the United Kingdom, plastic shopping bags are commonly known as carrier bags. In April 2007 the town of Modbury, Devon, became the first in the United Kingdom to become 'plastic bag free' when the local traders decided to stop issuing plastic bags to customers. This happened after a local trader visited Hawaii and saw the terrible damage done to wildlife by the bags in the ocean. Growing awareness in the United Kingdom of the problems caused by indiscriminate use of plastic bags

The London Local Authorities (Shopping Bag) Bill was deposited in Parliament on 27 November 2006. If the Bill is passed by Parliament, it is expected to become law by mid-2009. On 12 January 2008 Girton, Cambridgeshire became the first village in the East of England to declare itself a "Plastic Bag Free Community". The scheme comes from Sustainable Girton, an environmental group made up of local residents.

Plastic bags have largely displaced paper bags as the most common type of shopping bag during the late 1980s and early 1990s. There has been no broad government action against the litter problem. proper household waste management (reuse when possible and not littering) is considered a personal responsibility or a locally enforced misdemeanor. Some local governments have enacted ordinances, and many stores allow customers to return the bags for recycling. Empty bags carried on the wind are popularly known as "urban tumbleweed." On March 27, 2007, the City and County of San Francisco became the first city to ban non-compostable plastic shopping bags, followed shortly thereafter by nearby Oakland. In 2008 the Oakland ban was overturned in the courts as the city could not prove that the ban would improve environmental conditions by tranisitioning consumers to paper bags. Since July 1, 2007, all large supermarkets in the state of California will be required, by law, to take back and recycle plastic shopping bags.

Portland, Oregon, is next to propose a debagte on banning plastic bags according to Thanh Tan of news Channel KATU.

Plastic shopping bags are banned in at least several small villages and towns in Alaska, including the towns of Emmonak, Galena, and Kotlik.

Seattle, Washington, recently proposed a 20 cent "green fee" or tax on plastic bags, which would go into effect on January 1, 2009.

Los Angeles, California, has also suggested it would place a ban on plastic bags starting in 2010 but no ordinance has been drafted todate. New York City is suggested a 6 cent plastic bag tax shortly after it implemented a recycling ordinance and the collapse of the economy in 2008 created a large budget short fall for the city. The tax is being advertised to the public as environmentally friendly and an innovative way to raise needed revenue. If this tax is to take effect, state approval is required. IKEA, the home furnishings retailer, no longer provides plastic bags

The island of Zanzibar banned the import and use of plastic shopping bags in November 2006. People who litter used bags are responsible for a significant problem, and government officials enacted the ban to protect tourism, an economic mainstay for the island.

^ "China bans free plastic shopping bags", AP Press via the International Herald Tribune, January 9, 2008

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Many of those who have demonized plastic bags have enlisted scientific study to their cause. By exaggerating a grain of truth into a larger falsehood, they spread misinformation and abuse the trust of their unwitting audiences."

They are made of ethane which is a waste product from domestically produced natural gas. If the ethane is not used to make plastic bags, it will have to be burned off.(Click

The London Times has exposed this as a myth based on a typographical error! The report on which the myth is based mentioned discarded nets, not plastic bags. Red herrings are not a species needing protection. (Click

Plastic bags are not recyclable. NOT TRUE. Special plastic bag recycling bins have been installed in large supermarkets and retail stores throughout Californiasince 2007. Virtually all of the plastic bags deposited in those bins are actually recycled. (Click

According to the California Integrated Waste Management Board, plastic bags (including retail bags) use up only 0.4% of landfill space. (Click

Paper bags result in 3.3 times more greenhouse gases than plastic bags and require much more fuel to transport. (Click

Moreover, the $375 million figure is apparently the entire California cleanup budget for ALL litter and litter related programs. Plastic bags are only a very

85% of plastic bags used in the United States are manufactured in the United States. Taxing or banning plasticcarryout bags will result in the direct loss of approximately 4,000 American jobs, including in California. In addition, there will be thousands of resin and distribution company job losses. Destroying an American manufacturing industry based on myths and misinformation is irresponsible, absurd, and tragic.

Los Angeles-based plastic bag manufacturer employees visitingthe California Senate. They are deeply worried about the misinformation being spread about plastic bags.

The City of Seattle recently passed an ordinance imposing a 20 cent fee on plastic and paper bags. This was a highly unpopular move in the city. Now the citizens are fighting back!

We all know how bad plastic grocery bags are for the environment. Research suggests that 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide each year. The city of San Francisco will be first city in the U. S. to take a stand and ban plastic bags in large markets and pharmacies. But what can a crafter do to help the cause? Round up the bags you do have laying around in the house or collect them from neighbors and friends to start reusing plastic bags for your next craft project. Here's a post rounding up some of the best projects we've seen around. Sew 'em up, cut them into strips for knitting or crochet -- the possibilities are endless!

HOW-TO - Make Plastic Bag Yarn Helle of Gooseflesh who makes amazing crochet sea creatures has a tutorial up on how to make your own yarn from plastic bags. - Link. Plastic Grocery Bags into Knit 1950's Outfit Cathy Kasdan of Clevland, OH and I were emailing back and forth a bit yesterday afternoon regarding my post on the knitting machines. Then my jaw dropped when Cathy sent me this beautiful photo of her finished thesis project -- a handknit 1950's style ensemble made from plastic grocery bags. Cathy is currently finishing up a Master's in textiles at Kent State University and her thesis is based on consumer culture. See more photos here. - Link.

MagKnits has a pattern by Katherine Vaughan showing you how to knit up this handy tote. Link. Knit Plastic Bag By cutting up strips of plastic, MelGiggles on Craftster knit up this handy tote bag that's perfect for the beach or pool. Link. Tips for Crocheting with Plastic Bags Cindy of My Recycled Bags sells her cool crochet bags and products made from recycled plastic bags. The site is full of information and resources about crochet and other crafted recycled bags. Her tips open up your creativity to incorporate plastic bag as yarn projects for almost anything. Cindy says, "

Speaking as a crochet crafter, I have found that many existing patterns can be made using recycled plastic bags as yarn. Just remember to use a large hook and check your gauge on the product. Purses, rugs, placemats, and totes are normally excellent products using plastic bags.

- Link. Fusing Plastic Bag Tutorial Amanda at Etsy Labs has a great tutorial showing you how to fuse plastic bags so you can refashion those plastic grocery bags into cooler looking totes! - Link. There's also an accompanying video of the process here. - Link. Fused Plastic Bag Tote with Octopus This beautiful fused plastic bag tote complete with octopus design is made by Betz White who's been doing some amazing experiments with plastic grocery bag fusing. It's been fun to see the progress Betz has been making and TreeHugger has taken notice too with a write up about her bags as well. - Link. Extreme Plastic Bag Makeover Jmesdiylounge on Craftster got inspired by fusing plastic bags and created her own collage design complete with adding a recycled shoe lace for the trim and handles. Link. Plastic Bag Dress Made by mleak on Flickr the dress was fused together to form fabric and then sewn together.- Link. Plastic Bag Raincoat Pen Felt on Etsy collected plastic bags from trash cans for 1 week to make the material for her plastic bag raincoat. Link. Plastic Bag Jewelry by Anna Roebuck Treehugger has a great story about artist Anna Roebuck who makes jewelry from plastic shopping bags. The bags and other materials are layered, collaged together and bonded by fusing. - Link. Plastic Bag Headband Make yourself a cute headband by fusing plastic bags like panic_paislee on Craftster. Link. Plastic Bag for Cosmetics Jamiewatchthestars on Craftster sewed up this cute cosmetics pouch all made from plastic bags. Link.

You don't have to live under a rock to think plastic bags are biodegradable. Here in the UK more than 3/4 of our supermarkets use recycled and biodegradable carrier bags. That's why I'm worried mine will fall to bits, I'm hoping to sell recycled crafts for charity. As for releasing CO2 into the atmosphere, they will do that when they break down anyway. The ozone is depleted by CFC propellant gases so it's aerosols not bags to worry about. Sometimes you have to use a bag, when you've forgotten to take a bag from home and I often rescue them from friends' bins. So it's always good to be able to recycle them. I've been knitting with chunky needles as it's a bit easier.

Everyones going on about how difficult it is to recycle these plastic bags y dont we all just quit using them. that way all the top markets and fashion houses etc will stop buying em from manufacturers who in return will stop producing em. Its demand that keeps production going out there. I reckon strong paper bags that are biodegradable and which u can reuse several times are the best option. The crafts ideas are great but only if they dnt exceed the damage that these plastic bags cause.

I must say, get a grip with the arguments. seriously. I have been surfing the web all day, bookmarking anything I could make. I crochet, so this was perfect! Thank you. I'm going to the beach soon, and a plastic bag bag would be perfect, and with a family of six, I have enough safeway and target bags to make an army of totes!!!

The idea that just a "small amount of fumes" can't really be harmful is spurious. If you think that your tiny little emission is meaningless, think again. You're being selfish and self-indulgent just so you can do something "crafty." You're fooling yourself into thinking that because you made some plastic bags into something cute that you WOULDN'T OTHERWISE HAVE BOUGHT, you're doing something good. You're not. You need to STOP using plastic bags or reuse them forever, start using re-usable canvas bags, and START buying things that are made out of recycled plastic bags. Eg. fiberfilled jackets, lumber-substitute, etc. And I do recall hearing that the fumes from melting/burning plastic are TOXIC to birds, so I'm not so sure it's a great idea to do it with ventilation--don't kill yourself, just kill the birds!!! I don't mean to rain on anyone's parade, but we need to think more deeply on this. Thanks for hearing me out. I appreciate your creative energy and thirst for beauty! Sabrina

Hmm, I really don't think the fumes are a concern, but it never hurts to be careful (and as Bre said, particularly if you are pregnant) but I don't think anyone need to worry if you take some simple precautions (ventilation). About it being an environmental problem, it is because the amount of plastic bags used and thrown away each year is so huge. And 10-20 years means they will be a problem for animals (and will look bad in the environment) even if it is 'biodegradable'. I think it looks cool too, but i guess that is personal. (And depends what you do with it of course). =)

Actually, according to numericlife. com, plastic bags take 10-20 years to break down back into the earth..not "thousands", kate. And yes, that means that they are considered 'biodegradable'. Idk, it seems to me that if fumes really are released into the atmosphere (and potentially one's lungs) then it's not really worth the ugly fashion anyways. The only thing I would actually sport from all the crafts above would maybe be the octopus tote, since it's least trashy-looking (literally).and maybe the mickey mouse tote and crocheted bags as well, those aren't so bad.

I don't know if this works, but I've been thinking lately of taking layers of plastic bags and sewing them together to make a basket to hold recycling, but I don't know if that would work without fusing. That fumes thing sounds nasty. By the way, I would be doing this more to save money than because I think I'm some kind of environmental do gooder (although I try).

I love the idea of reusing these plastic bags for fun crafty ideas. My concern is the dioxins released from the plastic as they are heated/fused. Ive been playing around with the techniques published here and don't know if anyone else has a concern with these toxic chemicals being released. Right now I'm having a internal delema about weather these plastics are more of a threat as a physical presents or if the chemicals released into the environment may cause greater long term damage to wildlife and the water supply. I've only done a little research, but to my understanding these dioxins can contribute to breast cancer and have huge effects on little kids, due to their ability to imitate hormones in people. If anyone has anymore info or concerns with this process please pass it on. But for now ill be using an organic mask when i work with these potentially harmful chemicals. Julia us

To Corey. I usually don't post comments, but I had to respond to yours. Firstly, where did you get the idea that plastic shopping bags are biodeqradable?? Are you living under a rock? There has been a movement in the USA and other countries(even China!!) to get rid of the things because of the harm they do to the environment. (they take thousands of years to degrade.) Secondly, how do you think they make the bags?? they heat seal them!! That doesn't mean it isn't harmful to heat them with an iron, but one person heating a few bags doesn't do as much damage as the company making the bags. Thirdly, most plastic bags are not actually recycled due to the contamination from food products, so your argument, unlike the bags, holds no water!!! If you are going to rail about the environment, do some research first, instead of spewing your own misinformed opinions. stop killing everyone's fun.

BTW there are tons of "cold" applications for plastic bags. The yarn and fabric idea is *brilliant*. You can also easily turn them (by hand) into rope, dog leashes, plastic flowers, etc. Keep this in mind -- those huge plastic factories you see are filtering their output. Unlike you when you iron these biodegradable bags into not-so-biodegradable crafts. (most of which get thrown out soon anyhow) P. S. when re-purposing cheap things don't use a bunch of electricity! You're just fueling the machine.

What are we releasing back into our ozone layer when fusing these plastic bags? Even though we think it is alright what is the long term effect to our lungs? Just like everything else, we don't really know and then it is usually to late and the damage is done.

I'm really interested in that plastic bag rain coat. Does anyone have any recommendations for where I can get a pattern/instructions for sewing one of those together? I've seen the MAKE podcast about melting bags together, so I guess I'm more concerned about putting it together. Thanks!

We don't own a sewing machine, so my daughter and I have just been making plastic bag kites, using this simple template.

Thank you for featuring my fused plastic bag. I love your mag and blog so much, it is so neat to see something I made here! Thanks again!

Ireland started the tax on plastic bags a few years ago (it originally was 15 euro cents, but has recently increased), and the results were dramatic. When we come to the US, we have a huge number of the bags that we bring back with us (for small trashbins and keeping in pockets). Now I can make myself a neat bag as well, with all these Target bags! (Oh, they don't have those either.-) ).

A typical British family heads home laden with plastic bags packed full of the weekly supermarket shop. Cut to the haunting image of a sea turtle, thousands of miles away, struggling through the deep ocean waters as discarded plastic bags wrap themselves around its flippers and body. These majestic animals are dying in alarming numbers because they mistake the flimsy translucent bags - which could in theory come from British supermarkets - for jellyfish, a key element of their diet. Scroll down for more.

Once swallowed by the turtle, the tough plastic becomes lodged in its gut, sealing the fate of the sea creature. The plastic is indigestible and wraps around the turtles insides. Slowly, agonisingly, the animal starves to death. The endangered Green Turtle provides a potent symbol of the deadly threat to wildlife and the blight on the natural world caused by throwaway plastic bags handed out free in their billions to shoppers. Closer to home, other animals also pay the price. In April 2002 a dead minke whale was washed up on the coast of Normandy. When her stomach was cut open, 2lb of plastic bags was found - she had mistaken them for food and died a painful death. An astonishing 13billion free single-use plastic bags are dished out by Britains High Street stores every year. These flimsy bags - a byproduct of crude oil - are issued at the rate of more than 800 a year to every family in the land. Typically they are used for only 20 minutes before being thrown out. But they will take up to 1,000 years to rot away. If the Normans had used plastic bags in the 1066 invasion, archaeologists would still be digging them up today. Scroll down for more.

During their long decay millions linger millions linger like urban tumbleweed to pollute our streets, the countryside, parks, rivers and seas. Britains coast is washed with a toxic plastic soup carried on the tide which threatens our seabirds, turtles, whales and other wildlife. Gannets off Cornwall suffer a long painful death, unable to feed or fly after getting entangled. Dolphins scoop up plastic bags and carry them around, risking strangulation and suffocation. And some 8 per cent of the worlds seal population has reportedly been harmed by plastic bags. Today the Daily Mail launches the Banish the Bags campaign in an effort to rid the country of these single-use plastic bags, the most ubiquitous feature of our disposable society. Two of Britains closest neighbours have shown how simple steps can bring a dramatic fall in the use of these throwaway bags. The government in Ireland introduced a bag tax, currently 16p, which led to a 90 per cent reduction after its introduction in 2002. A year ago, after pressure from shoppers, the biggest supermarkets in France imposed a ban on free carriers. They now charge between 2p and 42p for reusable bags. This has removed millions of free bags from high streets. The French government will impose an outright ban in 2010. There are plenty of alternatives, from the sturdy bags for life offered by many stores to those made from cloth and the traditional shopping basket. Yet Britain remains one of the few countries in the developed world where stores routinely hand out billions of plastic bags. Scroll down for more.

Dumping ground. Discarded plastic bags and cartons pile up on the roadside outside a supermarket in North Shields, North Tyneside

The Governments waste strategy document, published last May, concluded. In the longer term, the Government envisages that the single-use carrier bag, issued free at point of sale, will become a thing of the past. However, ministers are under pressure to deliver. Separately, most large retailers have paid lip-service to tackling this plastic poison. Some have promised to reduce the overall environmental impact of their plastic bags by 25 per cent by the end of this year. But they are silent about what - if anything - comes next. The lack of action shows a remarkable contrast to the vigorous campaigns by hundreds of community groups which have lobbied for voluntary bans. Modbury in Devon was the template for these efforts after campaigners won a ban by all the towns 43 retailers. A political consensus is building to ban the single-use bag, while there is growing evidence that the majority of shoppers also support this crusade. Local authorities in London, involving all parties, want either a ban or fees for single-use plastic bags. They are pursuing a Bill through Parliament that they hope will give them the power to force through a change. In Wales, the Tories and Lib-Dems are supporting the imposition of a levy on the throwaway carriers as a way of encouraging a switch. In Scotland, the SNP government has signalled it will look favourably on the idea of either a ban or levy. Some enlightened British chains have taken tentative steps towards encouraging a change in shopping habits. Marks Spencer, for example, has run trials in Northern Ireland and the South-West, where shoppers are charged 5p for each carrier bag. Scroll down for more.

Ikea, together with the German-owned discount outlets Aldi and Lidl, also charges. Waste Watch, a campaigning environmental organisation, argues there is no such thing as a free carrier bag. Director Peter Robinson said. Consumers currently pay for the cost of free carrier bags in the price of the goods that they buy. We dont believe the supermarkets commitment goes far enough. Evidence from around the world shows that introducing a levy on disposable bags can reduce their usage by up to 90 per cent. Across the UK that would mean more than 11billion fewer bags going to landfill each year. Rebecca Hoskings, who led the Modbury revolution, said. The oil used to make a plastic bag takes millions of years to form in the Earth - the bag is used for a few minutes and it then lasts in the environment for 1,000 years. Is that a wise use of the material? Emma Snowden of the Marine Conservation Society said. As marine litter these bags pose a serious hazard to some of our favourite marine wildlife that either eat them or become entangled in them and drown. Former Labour environment secretary Michael Meacher favours a tax that raises money for green projects. The model that started in Ireland has been strikingly successful in reducing the colossal number of bags that are used, he said. Boris Johnson, Tory candidate for London mayor, said. It is especially now, when the leaves are off the trees, that you can see the way these bags insult the landscape. There they are on the topmost boughs. They clog drains. They disfigure the ditches. Marks Spencer chief executive Sir Stuart Rose said. We all use too many carrier bags in the UK so over the last year MS has been trialling a number of initiatives to help reduce the number of free carrier bags we give out. ? Do you have any photos showing plastic pollution? Please email them to us .

San Francisco has become the first city in North America to ban the use of traditional plastic grocery bags, a step that municipal leaders hope will spread across the country. Passed Tuesday by the city's board of supervisors, the law prohibits large grocery stores and drugstores from using non-recyclable and non-biodegradable plastic bags made from petroleum products. Supermarkets will have six months to comply while drugstores will have up to one year. The city legislator who introduced the bill, Ross Mirkarimi, said that up to 200 million plastic bags are used each year in the city of roughly 740,000 people. It's estimated a traditional plastic bag takes 1,000 years to dissolve. "The first order of conservation is reduction and what we want to do is reduce the non-recyclable plastic bag," Mirkarimi said. "Many [foreign] cities and nations have already implemented very similar legislation. It's astounding that San Francisco would be the first U. S. city to follow suit," he said.

Jared Blumenfeld, the head of the city's environment department, said there would be many benefits. By cutting 100 million plastic bags a year the city will save 1.5 million litres of oil, and eliminate 4.2 million kilograms of carbon dioxide, Blumenfeld said. Blumenfeld said he hopes other cities will follow in San Francisco's footsteps. "We certainly hope that it will proliferate throughout the United States, certainly at least throughout the state of California," he said.

On April 2, the tiny town of Leaf Rapids in northwestern Manitoba is set to become the first Canadian community to ban plastic bags. The bylaw prevents retailers from selling or distributing the single-use bags. Ignoring the ban could result in a $1,000-per-day fine. Officials will hand out cloth shopping bags to each of the town's roughly 550 residents before the ban comes into effect on April 2. The B. C. mountain town of Rossland is also considering a voluntary ban on single-use plastic bags.

Plastic shopping bags are one of the most efficient and innovative means to transport items from store to home. Convenient, strong but lightweight, reusable and inexpensive its no wonder that plastic shopping bags are the preferred choice of consumers. Introduced 40 years ago, plastic shopping bags revolutionized how people shop for food and essentials. It is hard to think of a world without them. The Canadian plastics industry has had a decades-long commitment to product stewardship and environmental responsibility to ensure the wise use andrecycling of plastic shopping bags.

Green Central. click here to read Times Online's environment blog Scientists and environmentalists have attacked a global campaign to ban plastic bags which they say is based on flawed science and exaggerated claims. The widely stated accusation that the bags kill 100,000 animals and a million seabirds every year are false, experts have told The Times. They pose only a minimal threat to most marine species, including seals, whales, dolphins and seabirds. Gordon Brown announced last month that he would force supermarkets to charge for the bags, saying that they were one of the most visible symbols of environmental waste. Retailers and some pressure groups, including the Campaign to Protect Rural England, threw their support behind him.

But scientists, politicians and marine experts attacked the Government for joining a bandwagon based on poor science. Lord Taverne, the chairman of Sense about Science, said. The Government is irresponsible to jump on a bandwagon that has no base in scientific evidence. This is one of many examples where you get bad science leading to bad decisions which are counter-productive. Attacking plastic bags makes people feel good but it doesnt achieve anything. Campaigners say that plastic bags pollute coastlines and waterways, killing or injuring birds and livestock on land and, in the oceans, destroying vast numbers of seabirds, seals, turtles and whales. However, The Times has established that there is no scientific evidence to show that the bags pose any direct threat to marine mammals. They dont figure in the majority of cases where animals die from marine debris, said David Laist, the author of a seminal 1997 study on the subject. Most deaths were caused when creatures became caught up in waste produce. Plastic bags dont figure in entanglement, he said. The main culprits are fishing gear, ropes, lines and strapping bands. Most mammals are too big to get caught up in a plastic bag. He added. The impact of bags on whales, dolphins, porpoises and seals ranges from nil for most species to very minor for perhaps a few species. For birds, plastic bags are not a problem either. The central claim of campaigners is that the bags kill more than 100,000 marine mammals and one million seabirds every year. However, this figure is based on a misinterpretation of a 1987 Canadian study in Newfoundland, which found that, between 1981 and 1984, more than 100,000 marine mammals, including birds, were killed by discarded nets. The Canadian study did not mention plastic bags. Fifteen years later in 2002, when the Australian Government commissioned a report into the effects of plastic bags, its authors misquoted the Newfoundland study, mistakenly attributing the deaths to plastic bags. The figure was latched on to by conservationists as proof that the bags were killers. For four years the typo remained uncorrected. It was only in 2006 that the authors altered the report, replacing plastic bags with plastic debris. But they admitted. The actual numbers of animals killed annually by plastic bag litter is nearly impossible to determine. In a postscript to the correction they admitted that the original Canadian study had referred to fishing tackle, not plastic debris, as the threat to the marine environment. Regardless, the erroneous claim has become the keystone of a widening campaign to demonise plastic bags. David Santillo, a marine biologist at Greenpeace, told The Times that bad science was undermining the Governments case for banning the bags. Its very unlikely that many animals are killed by plastic bags, he said. The evidence shows just the opposite. We are not going to solve the problem of waste by focusing on plastic bags. It doesnt do the Governments case any favours if youve got statements being made that arent supported by the scientific literature thats out there. With larger mammals its fishing gear thats the big problem. On a global basis plastic bags arent an issue. It would be great if statements like these werent made. Geoffrey Cox, a Tory member of the Commons Environment Select Committee, said. I don't like plastic bags and I certainly support restricting their use, but plainly its extremely important that before we take any steps we should rely on accurate information. It is bizarre that any campaign should be endorsed on the basis of a mistranslation. Gordon Brown should get his facts right. A 1968 study of albatross carcasses found that 90 per cent contained some form of plastic but only two birds had ingested part of a plastic bag. Professor Geoff Boxshall, a marine biologist at the Natural History Museum, said. Ive never seen a bird killed by a plastic bag. Other forms of plastic in the ocean are much more damaging. Only a very small proportion is caused by bags. Plastic particles known as nurdles, dumped in the sea by industrial companies, form a much greater threat as they can be easily consumed by birds and animals. Many British groups are now questioning whether a ban on bags would cost consumers more than the environmental benefits. Charlie Mayfield, chairman of retailer John Lewis, said that tackling packaging waste and reducing carbon emissions were far more important goals. We dont see reducing the use of plastic bags as our biggest priority, he said. Of all the waste that goes to landfill, 20 per cent is household waste and 0.3 per cent is plastic bags. John Lewis added that a scheme in Ireland had reduced plastic bag usage, but sales of bin liners had increased 400 per cent.

20% is household waste and 0.3% is plastic bags. Is this figure determined by weight, mass, or quantity of items. It makes a difference. Figures like these are misleading when the unit of measurment is not disclosed. Talk about the endorsing something on the basis of a mistranslation.

I use a purchased carrier and plastic bags from the store. For people who walk, you can carry your purchases easier and more of them (versus a paper bag in each arm). They are re-used as trash bin liners and doggy pooh pickup and disposal. Also, our town recycles both plastic and paper bags.

Plastic bags, like all other plastic, will eventually all end up in our oceans, and form a thick soup of floating debris, particles big and small, that will make life for animals feeding on plankton impossible. It wil kill fish and -plankton feeding- whales. Plastic-is-disastric. You'll see. Soon !

You mention that a 1968 study of albatross carcasses showed 90% contained plastics, but only 2 birds contained plastic bag fragments. Keep in mind that supermarkets only introduced the plastic carry out bag in 1977, and it was not untill 1996 that 4 of 5 grocery stores used the bag.

Science is great. The informaton being disseminated is wrong so scienctists have made it known. You don't get that from politicians, bar room sages or evangelists. incidentally that report is four decades old! However turtles do eat plastic bags and die from them.

Roll on oil at $200 a barrel . If we had not been so greedy and wasteful, It would still be cheap to use for fertilizer and other useful oil based products. It still has not sunk in waste sucks. If you cant figure out how to survive without a plastic bag. Boy you, ve got problems.

Plastic bags should ONLY be used for rubbish bins and those should be made biodegradable. This article totally ignores the fact that nonbiodegrable plastic NEVER GOES AWAY. It breaks up into smaller and smaller particles and become part of our soil, our beaches, and ingested by animals and humans alike. Really nice. We need to stop using it!

I work with Whales and Dolphins, in a relatively pristine environment, HOWEVER, we regularly see whales, dolphins and turtles with plastic bags stuck on them, and even on one occasion a whales calf had its head stuck in a carrier bag, blocking its airways. Surely, it is not necessary to have scientific evidence for this. It is FACT that plastic bags are polluting our water ways and being washed out into the sea. Reducing the number of carrier bags used is a simple way to help the environment, and something even the smallest individual can do to actually help make a difference and when there are many alternatives, why do we even need to bother with them?!

Yes, this plastic bag campaign is ill-thought out. Many people, have to use plastic bags for their rubbish. This is the case in our apartment buildings. I contacted the council about a year ago pointing out the problem. I pointed out that there was pressure on people not to use plastic bags, and yet they were needed for our communal rubbish bins. I was told that the only thing I could do was buy my own plastic bags to use for my rubbish! If you ask me, this campaign only benefits the retailers - they save money on the previously free plastic bags. Meanwhile, customers have to pay the cost of a so-called environmentally friendly policy imposed on them by people who have obviously not thought it through properly.

I made grocery bags out of my old t-shirts. The risk of them ripping is slim to nil' and i'm not utilizing a product that is dependent on petroleum for its production. No matter the claims, little harm can come from using LESS plastic bags.

Plastic bags, as the article states, are not the source of environmental imbalance. Paper bags are a worse option by far. they are dyed in chemicals to get that brownish color. they have glue at the bottom which attracts cocroaches, an they are bulkier than plastics. Unlike plastics they can not be downgauged (made thinner in thickness) since they would not hold the weight. It is time we clarify this fallacy about plastic bags and really concentrate on what does the most damage to our environment. us, human beings acting irresponsibly with the resources we obtain.

Many people actually re-use the plastic bags tp throw trash. If Government banned all types of plastic bags, then we will have to buy trash liners which are made from plastics too. Trash liners are thicker and consume more plastics. Just an additional information, the new plastic resin technology is now using the ethane gas. Previously the ethane gas was just released to the air as a by-product of oil drilling. Actually the using of ethane gas to make plastic resins helps to reduce air pollution. My point is. we have to reduce energy consumption. Use more public transports. Reduce the numbers of private cars. Have only 1 TV at home, 1 radio, 1 computer. Learn to share. If we consume less oil, we will have less petrochemicals. If we don't make the petrochemicals into products, we might pollute the world with them, as they are the byproducts of the major production, i. e. fuel production.

Even if plastic bags do not harm animals on a great scale, there are still plenty of reasons to use fewer of them. They are made from petroleum products, and their production waste energy and gives off green house gases and pollution. They often end up in trees and roadsides, and spoil our views of nature. Linda, Plano, USA

A 1968 study of albatross carcasses found that 90 per cent contained some form of plastic but only two birds had ingested part of a plastic bag. Plastic grocery bags were actually introduced in the mid-70s, almost ten years after this study. That fact alone makes your charge of poor science rather comical. But apart from that, aren't there any more recent studies?

I continually re-use my plastic bags until they break for everything from throwing out rubbish, to carrying my lunch in case of leaks, protecting clothes in my suitcase when I travel and even lining paint trays when I am home renovating so I can throw out the plastic bag with dried paint instead of washing paint down into the water supply. However, banning plastic bags would only be effective if they banned the production and SALE of ALL plastic type bags. If you prevent shops from handing out so-called free plastic bags for your shopping (which aren't free anyway, as they build in a cost onto grocery prices), there will still be available for purchase, bin liners and other types of plastic bags. So you end up paying more for a necessary part of the household requirement - ie plastic bags for your bin, etc etc. The shops win and the consumer loses - again. And are they going to ban all the plastic bags given out by clothing shops, with all their fancy advertising? I don't think so!

HELEN Animals do not have a problem on any great scale, it's the plastic ties holders around beer cans, fishing tackle the like, that cause real problems. Are you going to ban them ? Biodegradable bags disintegrate quite qickly.

I re-use my plastic bags, esp. as a protector for my books to/from work so they don't get damaged either by people or the rain while I've carried them. We haven't produced water-proof paper bags here in the states yet. If someone wants to do something useful, how about releasing a study that reactionism can hurt more than it helps (see the decrease of female child-births in China, shortage of food and damage to economies for fairy-tale bio-fuels which aren't here yet), and preach education and real science - or just release a study that policiticans hot air causes more damage in many ways, from global climate change (aka seasons) to lowering of the global i. q.

I love plastic bags. I reuse them all the time. I send my kids sandwiches and snacks in them, And I reuse my super market bags for a variety of things. To ban plastic bags is stupid.

The central claim of campaigners is that the bags kill more than 100,000 marine mammals and one million seabirds every year. Is that really the central claim? really? I don't use plastic bags because the production of them has many harmful bi-products to the environment. Also, They take a very long time to degrade. As in, every little piece of plastic produced within your lifetime will still be around when you die. Every piece of plastic that has ever been made is still around unless it has been incinerated. (While plastic has only been produced since the beginning of the last century, this is still a pretty long time.) Plastic can be useful in things such as medical devices (IVs, syringes, etc.). There are certain things which we need plastic for BUT our society has gotten a little silly with its massive overproduction of plastic. I cant even buy a deck of playing card without it being wrapped up in plastic. There is no necessary reason for that. Its a waste.

If plastic bags are preferred by consumers over, let's say, paper bags, they are no more wasteful or ridiculous than the product they are carrying. If mr. Bethlehem doesn't want to use plastic bags it's in his own birthright to do so, as well as spreading the message. If however, special-interest groups try to get their subjective preferences into government policy it's a whole different story. Because, essentially, government is per definition wasteful and ridiculous (which is, if it did not exist, not wanted or preferred by many people. the people who do prefer it could always opt for being voluntary slaves).

I suppose 100,000 thousand birds is a lot. But did you know that approximately 1 BILLION birds die in the US by flying into buildings (they don't see the glass). ref. That is to say for every 1 bird supposedly killed by a plastic bag, 10,000 are killed by flying into buildings. Whatever.when I'm asked for paper or plastic, I say, plastic, please.

I bought a wicker basket at Walmart today and the cashier was very annoyed when I (politely) requested no bag. I've had this experience before. Why do many cashiers think that it is their birthright to give you as many plastic bags as possible?At the supermarket, often only one or two items are placed in each bag. People often leave with 15 or more bags. Regardless of the effect on the environment, it is simply wasteful and ridiculous.

Anyone old enough should remember that it was the ENVIRONMENTALIST that gave us plastic bags. Their logic was we were destroying forest to make grocery bags and bags could be make from a more readily available and cheaper source petroleum. As usual, they got what they wanted but the consequences were not what they expected, so now it's everyone else's fault and they get to play the good guys again by banning what they pushed for in the first place.

Regardless of whether they kill wildlife or not there are plenty of other sound enviornmental reasons to reduce usage of plastic bags. Tesco and the CoOp use biodegradable bags why cant others do so (or be made do so). The tax in Ireland was a good idea in theory but in a supreme act of idiocy it applies equally to biodegradable and non-biodegradable plastic

This is such a NON-ISSUE. Anybody who ever takes ONE FLIGHT contributes more harm to the environment than a lifetime of using plastic bags sensibly, i. e re-using them a couple of times until they're holed. People want to think that if they a) give up plastic bags, and b) swap their light bulbs for low-energy ones (oh, the pain)..then they'll be able to carry on being a 2-car family, taking one (two ? three ?!!) flights a year. Ain't going to happen. If you want to make a real impact, work on the MAJOR problems first (but, heh, they'll be the ones that hurt the most), leave the trivia like this to the end. Unfortunately, we get the same message from government a) it's OK to pollute the environment by flying as that helps the eeconomy (as though that's going to make a difference) b) don't mind you having a car producing large amount of CO2, as long as you pay. c) basically, do anything you like to environment as long as you pay in tax.

What is wrong with buying a shopping bag or basket or string net bag? It is only because of the packaging we need so much space to fit it in. Plastic bags are great but its better if we can keep that oil for more essential use. I think that recycling is a cop out for the real thing which is reuse. The Dutch return all glass bottles, jars, sauce bottles to the supermarket. All have deposits. Their plastic water bottles are very thick and are reused many times. Refundable deposits ensure return. Milk bottles had a very high return life. The plastic containers we all buy our milk in now could and should be made to be returned. How many beer bottles do you dump in your bin? how many bottles in every bar in britain make a one way journey. People used to take the egg boxes with them to buy eggs . The problem lies with the supermarkets. not designed for returnables. Reuse is better than refuse, cheaper, and creates more jobs. Buy less but better quality longer life products.

Don't you know that the millions of animals killed by plastic bags are buried alongside all the millions of people killed by second hand smoke.

I have watched Spinner Dolphins using plastic shopping bags as toys. They swim with them on their dorsal or pectoral fins and pass them back and forth. They also interact with them in a very complicated ballet-like kind of game.

Plastic bags are produced in such volume at such low weights they are an extremely efficient means for transporting goods from the store to the home. Most are then re-used as waste bin liners etc which would otherwise require the purchase of an alternative product with all the marketing, transport, packaging and production costs this would require. Of course we can do without these bags because we will just use alternative means but that does not mean they will be more efficient. How many people get half way to the shop and then have to turnaround because they forgot the bags? Or buy the heavier gauge reusable ones and still throw them away! The reality is there is no easy, simple solution to an overpopulated, over consuming and oil dependent world. Instead of messing around with plastic bags, hunting bans etc, we should be more concerned with illegal wars, famine and disease, child abuse, large cars, poor housing, cheap flights, excessive consumerism, failing schools etc

The biggest con was convincing us we needed billions of plastic bags in the first place. now we see them as some sort of right. shame on the Times for appeasing those who believe they are not responsable for the consequence of their own lazy overconsumerism. but you wont show this note anyway.

Of course we must do much more than giving up our carrier bags, but there are a number of reasons that bags are a good target for government attention. Firstly, every family can easily adapt to using fewer carriers if they want to. Secondly, when consumers get the message that plastic bags are harmful, they are more likely to understand why excessive packaging is a problem and encourage retailers to stop over packing their goods. They will perhaps check if plastic wraps are recyclable once they realise how long bags take to break down.

Well now more flawed evidence is being used no force us into increasing supermarket profits through paying for plastic bags it makes you wonder how much of the climate change evidence is real and how much is being trumpt up to justify extra tax.

Jeff, So which is it? Cutting down millions of trees to replace the plastic bags that are banned? All you are doing is transferring the issue to some other environmental niche. The world is so down on itself that they chose to give Al Gore the Nobel Peace Prize when he has had nothing to do with peace anywhere. He has been disproven, but the real truths are ignored because people the world over are enjoying their misery. Now the plastic bags. I have alsways taken plastic bags when given the choice to save a tree branch that was taken to make a paper bag. Maybe we should make bags out of recycled paper only, but then what about the ink content getting into our oceans? Oh what to do.

The issue about plastic bags (and other oil derivatives) is not that they kill wildlife but that they persist in the environment for so long. This article seriously misses the point by undermining an important debate by focussing on a small part of the big picture.

In the US plastic bags are recycled to make beautiful warm fleeces and blankets which are very cheap to buy! I own several. In UK they are one of the very few things which are not accepted for recycling, so adding to landfill for ever.

Plastic bags are a nuisance if your charged for them less will be blowing around our streets making it prettier(It works in Ireland). As for waste just put it straight into your wheelie bin and rinse out when collected.

I save and reuse plastic bags, as do my relatives. They also serve to be good bin liners. Frankly, I do not know what the problem is. Too many people are are trying to look good and raise revenue by claiming greenie points. tax on fuel because of global warming, tax on tobacco (I don't smoke) and alcohol because they're bad for you, congestion charge, etc etc.

So if you see all these plastic bags on the ground and in the trees, then why don't you just pick them up and put them in a garbage can so they can be disposed of properly. If you want things cleaned up, then I think just ought to start doing it instead of just passing on by and complaining.

There is no mention in this article about the effects of plastic bags on sea turtles. But there is substantial evidence from necropsies that sea turtles, most of which are endangered species, ingest plastic bags after mistaking them for jellyfish.

Another absurd idea from the Snorkers of Westminster. I agree Plastic bags are a problem however the science has been around for many years to simply make them photo/biodegradeable so why dont they enforce it?

Oil is used to make plastic.. Plastic bags (especially thin plastic bags) do not get reused.. therefore, its a waste.. a waste of oil/energy to produce the bags.. etc..

Reporters often get this wrong. Plastic bags constitute a threat to wildlife because they break down into nurdles, small bits of plastic that appear to be food. When wildlife consume these nurdles, they are not getting necessary nutrients and perish from starvation, not by strangulation or suffocation due to plastic bags.

If we have to replace the extremely cheap, flimsy bags will everyone be willing to accept the much higher cost of paper bags with their associated, highly polluting, paper production methods. Hang around a paper mill for a while, get inside and look at the toxic waste they generate and then worry about the unsightly plastic bag waste blowing in the wind. There doesn't seem to be a best answer. The most workable solution is to use cotton bags for groceries and the like--reuseable, biodegradeable and washable. But how many could you carry to the store for a big shopping assignment? Too bad we can't have concerned citizens--concerned about loose trash, damage to wildlife (nylon netting for fishing), etc. Any, thanks for the opportunity to give my views. Lucius B. Gravely, IV E. Ellijay, Georgia, USA

Marc of Woodbridge is spot on. The Kyoto types, who dabble in the sale of indulgences, should be falling over backwards to give plastic bag users carbon credit coupons.

Charging 5 pence for a plastic bag is not going to save the planet..it's going to make you very slightly poorer..people aren't quite ready to put their groceries in their pockets. This idiotic logic applies to all green taxes..nothing will be consumed less.we'll just pay more for it..and the Government can just lay back, rake in the cash, and claim the moral high ground.

I remember the days of shopping when goods were put in paper bags and having to travel on public transport and the bags getting ripped open and there was the problem of walking when it rained and the the bags got wet. Will the environmentalists ask for a ban on sweets being sold in plastic bags and a return to to none display paper bags and banning plastic pots used for selling plants.

I don't know, when I Google on turtle mortality plastic I get several hits of scientific evidence (actual autopsy reports) supporting the impact of plastic bags on sealife. Maybe one study was misquoted, but this article uses that to disparage a legitimate concern. I suspect some of the quotes were taken out of context, when I check the Wiki entry on Sense About Science and see it may be an entryist anti-environmental group. Disclosure. I do like sea turtles.

What kills more birds annually, plastice bags or wind turbines used to generate electric power? Peter San Francisco

This article's sole focus is the impact plastic bags have on wildlife and coastlines alone when that isn't the core issue at all. The real issue is that plastic bags take thousands of years to degrade. it's irrelevant whether they are in a landfill or floating in the ocean, confusing dolphins or what have you. The consumer-driven world we live in produces far more solid waste than we have the capacity to store for very long. At the moment we dig and bury and manage as best we can, while sending what we can't handle to the poorest of the countries to sit in the most poorly managed landfills you can imagine.

I imagine the plastic bags, plastic bottles, don't do much damage but they look terrible cause they end up everywhere. I hate seeing them stuck in trees. Switch to canvas or hemp bags that are left in your car. Sierra club states there is little environmental difference between paper and plastic.

While it may be impossible to determine the exact number of animals killed solely by plastic bags, it is difficult to believe that the consumption of plastic can be anything other than bad for you. Any reduction in the number of single-use plastic bags given away by retailers in favour of cotton or jute bags is therefore likely to be beneficial to wildlife. Arguing over the degree of benefit does little to diminish the justification for seeking to achieve this.

Consumers have become increasingly aware in recent years about issues surrounding waste and recycling. Unfortunately, the supermarkets have been far slower to respond. The reason people still need to use so many plastic bin bags is because so little packaging is compostable or recyclable - and this is the fault of the supermarkets. It's all very well and good banning/charging for plastic bags, but this is a minor detail. When are we going to see a positive, cohesive strategy affecting all kinds of packaging?

We can't ban plastic bags, how else will we dispose of the mercury filled waste from broken cfl light bulbs. Defra gives the following guidance Vacate the room and ventilate it for at least 15 minutes. Do not use a vacuum cleaner, but clean up using rubber gloves and aim to avoid creating and inhaling airborne dust. Sweep up all particles and glass fragments and place in a plastic bag. Wipe the area with a damp cloth, then add that to the bag and seal it. Mercury is hazardous and the bag should not be disposed of in the bin. I can see an immediate use for old carrier bags!

Grocery bags reused as Garbage bags. Now I'll have to start buying BIGGER PLASTIC bags to hold unsanitary, potentially disease incubating fly larva nursery, waste. You just cant win with these people.

Isn't the greatest threat to Marine Life to Sea Turtles? Since a favorite food source for them are jellyfish, which look a lot like plastic bags, and swallowing them does kill the turtles. Quickly degrading plastic would seem to be an improvement to the situation.

Ocean cruise ships and third world countries routinely dump their plastic waste in into the oceans. I have visited a 2 million acre biosphere in centeral america and seen the pristine shore lines and the ocean shallows littered with plastic bottles, plastic six-pack sodacan holders, and plastic bags. It is time to stop using these wasteful and damaging products!

Less demand for plastic means more demand for alternatives such as paper. That means more trees are cut, more paper pollution, more paper mills (not very clean) and higher costs for all paper products. If you don't like plastic bags all over how about enforcing littering laws.

Certain type of banana and teak leaves for wrapping everything in the tropical countries are renewable, free/cheap, biodegradeable. goats, pigs, birds and chickens can eat them. Plastic bags should be avoided. Don't export your banana, teak, other safe leaves to use. Use them for own welfare. Developed nations can also take heed and investigate which suitable local leaves can be used for wrapping and containers. Be organically minded to save wastefulness and the global environment !

I recall when plastic bags were touted to save trees. The advertising in California was to insist on plastic instead of paper. Amazing how ignorant progressives are so short sighted. What will the disaster be next year? Canvas bags are bad?

The problem these days is that there are far too many organisation willing to tell lies to get their views accepted by the guillable public. For a start there is no shortage of oil under the ground in one form or another, the world isn't getting warmer if you read the latest reports by weather experts and now plastic bags are not killing every fish, bird,or beast. What there is a shortage of is decent, caring, nice people who don't throw their unwanted rubbish into every main road, street, gutter or someone else's garden because the world is full of crummy scruffy people who couldn't care less about the filthy environment. Ever followed a council rubbish truck shedding its load of rubbish as it goes to dispose of it on a landfill site ? I have !

Less demand for plastic, means less demand for oil, if we could apply this policy in all areas we would be less dependent on the black gold for so many areas of our lives. that aside, getting rid of the plastic carrier bag is a fantastic idea. i am forever dissapointed and embarresed when driving through this country and seeing them EVERYWHERE. they are unsightly and ruin our great countryside. move into the 21st century people. stop being fearful of change.

The notion that paper is biodegradable and plastic is not is another false fact. Scientist did up old dump sites and found that paper bags, newsprint, phone books are pristine as the day they were buried except they are sometimes swollen taking up more space in the landfil. Plastic bags on the other hand compresses taking up less space in the landfil. It is the clear choice for the time being. If you want paper to decompose you have to keep it wet and exposed to the elements.

The reality is that the developed nations have the ability to dispose of their refuse. If you live in the United States or England the technology of waste disposal is complete, we can safely dispose of refuse fro thousands of years case closed move on to the next issue. If underdeveloped nations, Egypt, Thailand, etc can not dispose of the bags properly they should ban them there. Trying to make me feel bad about plastic bags in the states, where my country can easily dispose, of them is lunacy.

E. Bee and Don, it isn't a choice between two non renewable sources for bags - Paper versus Plastic. Both are bad in different ways. We have to start thinking re-usable before re-cyclable. Bags made of cloth - made from a renewable material and re-useable at the same time are the better answer. But it's hard. We have a pile of re-usable bags and sometimes forget them. But we are getting better at throwing a bunch into our car. Also supermarkets are getting better - originally getting snotty looks when telling the check out people to fill our bags and not the plastic bags that they have the hooks to hold for them. Hemp is probably the best choice - easy to grow, incredibly strong and long lasting. Problem is that governments and police think all hemp is marijuana. But at least we are having these conversations. They would have been non-existent 10 years ago.

I find many of the posts here spewing unfounded facts. First of all plastic bags will not kill you unless you tie a bag over your head causing suffocation. By the way, all plastic bags give you a warning for that hazard. Plastic film, more specifically low density polyethylene(LDPE), linear low polyethylene (LLDPE) and High density (HDPE) is an inert, non-reactive material that if injested, will not kill you unless you injest enough material to cause a blockage. But then again, any idiot injesting enough paper bag material will kill you as well. Second, the beauty of a plastic bag is that it is such a GREAT Product. What other product can withstand such sidewall pressures and still contain the contents of the bag. Just try making a trip home with a cloth bag that gets bumped against something and see how fast the liquids come dripping out thru the weaving of the cloth bag. Third, plastic bags are great since they can be 100% recycled. After being a bag, mfg into decking.

I find it amazing that plastic bags have the peculiar habit of just showing up in various places without the benefit of some sort of transport. They just seem to go from manufacture to pristine environment in some sort of miraculous way. Why is the responsibility always misplaced? Is it totally out of the realm of possibility that the real enviro-polluters are you and me? Could we just go back to some conservation training in our schools rather than this drumbeat of corporate misdeeds. I live on a rural road that is constantly littered with trash thrown from cars by drivers and passengers alike. The accepted solution would be for my small company to adapt the road and clean up the trash while advertising on a sign declaring our concern for clean ditches which says This highway adapted by My Company. How about a sign that declares Clean up your own damn Trash!

Oh well, that's all right then, I'll throw all my plastic bags out of the window this afternoon. Would I prefer an environment covered in waste plastic bags or not covered in waste plastic bags? I'm mystified as to why so many people are so desperate to prove any and all climate change theories wrong. Fear? Inexplicable congenital perversity? Many of the things done to resolve climate change problems - real or imagined - are simple common sense and actually work for everyone, regardless of the end game. e. g Better fuel consumption from cars - saves the driver money and oil lasts longer (because it IS a finite resource, whatever Americans think!). What exactly is so wrong with that? Perhaps the guy I saw last week get out of his Mercedes, leaving the engine running, to walk 50 yards to a cash point, drawing out money for petrol no doubt, can explain this bizarre and perverse thinking. He probably sneers at common sense as well.

The irony is that the crisis-mongers making people fearful of shopping bags shoud actully be encouraging MORE use of bags. Whether they are plastic or paper shopping bags sequester carbon in solid form and prevent that carbon from ever being released into the atmosphere to cause global warming. More bags = less global warming. I always use waaay more bags than I need because I care about the environment.

Whether or not the bags directly kill animals is beside the point. There are other good reasons not to use them. Plastic bags are avoidable, so lets avoid them!

I dont need a bunch of scientist or a government report to tell me that plastic bags and bottles are a disaster for this planet. Ive canoed down the Amazon during the dry season and seen the river edge blotted out by plastic bangs hanging from trees exposed by the low water. Any one who has been to the pyramids will testify to plastic bags and bottles littering the site as is the rest of Africa. As a round the world sailor Ive seen the garbage islands at first hand in all of the world oceans . The worlds beaches are covered in garbage that will take years to clean up. I now live in Thailand a country with wonderful scenery ruin by plastic bottles and plastic bags because Thais lack the resources to deal with the problem. Forget big oil as the main polluter look no further than Big super markets, 7 Eleven, fast food chains and big drink companies. Dont ban plastic bottles and plastic bags because of some bad science ban them because its the right thing to do.

Oh, so that's ok then. We'll just keep stuffing our kitchen drawers with them (accidentally allowing a few 100's of thousands to drift across the countryside). For G*ds sake, they are still a complete waste! Just use cloth bags! Let me guess, the plastic bag makers paid someone somewhere to discredit this guy?

Hey Don, keep using paper bags and soon there will be no trees left for our plastic bags to get caught up in ! Just a joke Don, what ever the choice someone will find out that its the wrong choice.just depends who is in office at the time to know who will be against thedecision.

Its very unlikely that many animals are killed by plastic bags, he said. The evidence shows just the opposite. -What, that animals are brought into being by plastic bags? God is a plastic bag.

The point is that given plastic bags and any type of plastic does not decompose surely it is better to use less of it and throw away less so that we all benefit. Less pollution in landfill less plastic hanging off trees,less plastic bottels in the gutter etc. Some people would rather do nothing until it hits them in the face and then its too late. Simon, arezzo Italy

Perhaps Richard from California can substantiate his claim that plastc IS actually killing animals and seabirds. Oh, by the way, will old Gordon be taxing us on plastic bags if it becomes part of our shopping list?

Paper bags don't bio-degrade when dumped in modern landfills anyways. North American archeologists, deprived of a sufficient number of ancient sites, often train students using landfills. They have found that even newspapers from 75 years ago are often so well preserved that they are readable. They layers of clay used to seal modern landfills exclude oxygen and render the paper essentially non-biodegradable. And the paper in paper bags is much thicker than newsprint. So any degradation would be even slower. The paper in paper bags also weights more than the plastic in plastic bags, meaning a correspondingly larger amount of waste that is not going to biodegradable. Paper bags were just an easy way to clear people's consciences over their use of gas guzzling vehicles and destruction of the environment by agriculture, housing and pollution.

I recently studied bags of full of rubbish dumped in the country for a period of three weeks using cameras and microscopes. The first mammals attracted were rats, dogs and hedgehogs, none of them complained. But flies and a multitude of insects magically found their way into the bags even earlier and they all seemed to have a jolly good time in there. For these creatures of God, plastic bags full of human rubbish are the equivalent of an ideal housing estate with a free canteen attached. And with all the people emulating Ramsey and Oliver they get pretty nutritious diet including the all important 5 portions of fruit. If we can make them pay we could cut down on waste, boost the economy and live in harmony with our many legged, coloured and shaped friends.

Here in France E. Leclerc, one of the biggest supermarket chains removed free plastic bags from their shops 15 years ago with a 'lets all save our planet' PR compaign. No one was fooled, we all knew it was to cut costs by making customers pay for something that was previously free. I engaged them in a protracted exchange of letters asking for details of their savings and whether the money gained was contributed to saving the planet. Of course i got nowhere. One by one the other chains followed suite. We use just as many plastic bags. only we pay for them !

Plastic does contaminate the world! Paper can take place of them in many aera, and we can use only one bag time and time again!

Plastic bags are a symbol of our wasteful society but not the main issue. There's a massive sea of plastic debris floating around the Pacific and I would like to see a scientific study on the effect of it on all creatures who live in the occean. Brown's interest in this topic was entirely fleeting and you can bet he will not mention it again after reading the Times today.

John Lewis added that a scheme in Ireland had reduced plastic bag usage, but sales of bin liners had increased 400 per cent. The supermarkets gain threefold from a ban on plastic bags. they don't have to pay for free plastic bags, they can sell more shopping bags and they can sell more bin liners. This policy proposal combined with pressure for minimum prices on alcohol make me think that the supermarket lobbyists at Whitehall are more than earning their keep.

I am afraid that far too many people these days never grow out of their teenage years. I put it down to the 'nanny state' myself. they never have to think for themselves. Anyone who has had children remembers their teenage years, which can usually be summed up in one phrase. Don't confuse me with facts, my mind is made up. By the way. I think that you will find that the majority of plastic bags blowing around have been blown off an uncovered refuse lorry.

Yep, more 'science' based on doctored reports from getyourdodgysciencereporthere. com. The government is so quick to act on a potential revenue earner, like vultures spotting carrion. I can just see Gordon slavering over his cut of the MS bag scam. It may be miniscule in terms of tax, but hey, I have a clean conscience stealing from people using the word 'green' as a cover for the word 'greed'. There's nothing immune from this green wheeze. I have millions of idiots lining up to verbally abuse and brow-beat dissenters too. Plastic bags are bad but only because they take so long to degrade. Nothing wrong in trying to reduce the use of them. Nothing wrong in trying to reduce C02 either, but lets stop the Bags-are-bad zealots before they get wound-up and of hand just like the great Global Warming tax fiasco that has infected our country with a large dose of self-destructive stupidity.

Bags may not be threat marines and animal life but may pose threat to humans if used irresponsibly. In 2005 overuse of plastic bags and irresponsible disposal lead to blocking of sewage canals in Mumbai. During rains, this lead to floods killing hundreds and destroying thousands of properties. If not properly monitored this may happen anywhere maybe one day even in UK.

When I find plastic bags in my yard I blame bad neighbors and not the bags. For many years we have been told to use plastic to save our trees. Recently it was found that demand for wood was down and tree growers were selling off their land to developers to maintain their income. Using less wood does not necessarly save a tree. In fact, the inverse is sometimes true. Developers don't plant new trees to replace the ones they cut down.

I remember a friend who did a degree in environmental science pointing out that plastic bags are needed in landfill sites to act as 'fibre' to bind the materials together to make the mass more stable. Sounds plausible. Despite the science of the matter I think there is a psychological factor at play here - get people used to the idea of not generating wasting, show them it's not actually painful or hard work and this attitude will grow and spread to curbing other wasteful behaviour that does have a serious impact on the environment. And let's get the focus right. The problem as described is not caused by the bags themselves, but the ignorant litterers who discard them thoughtlessly. Most supermarkets have bag recycling bins by their doors these days.

One of the big problems with the crass misuse of scientific data for political ends is that good data gets lumped in with bad. There are already posts using 'the great plastic bags swindle' of 2008 to cast doubt on the utterly unrelated theories on climate change, and any number of other important issues. For what it's worth though, I agree with Niels of Budapest. tax the bags at 5p each (like the Irish did) and we'll get rid of hundreds of millions of the damn things floating around the streets in high winds, and stuck up trees after a storm!

Screw a plastic bag up into a ball and it will probably be about a centimeter squared. Now try and do the same with a carton from a ready-meal, or a pack of pears, or a tin of baked beans. It would be great if these bandwagon jumpers could at least focus on the right thing. There's been a report doing the rounds in the retail trade about how plastic bags are important to the 'make-up' of landfill waste, as they help bind it together without adding (virtually no) volume to it overall. But the retailers just wish to follow customer sentiment, which is irrational and sheep-like!

Yet another scare caused by faulty science. I wonder when they will wake up to the fraud that global warming is pushing on us all. I love the scare tactic about the huge plastic bag island in the Pacific Ocean. Somebody stayed awake for a long time to come up with that one.

I've been using ripstop bags I bring for years, not because I thought my plastic bags would end up in the ocean (I don't litter), but because it seems wasteful to use resources unnecessarily. --Amy Alkon, advicegoddess. com

Plastic or paperbags, the problem is that they are free which causes a huge extra consumption. Just check the massive reduction in bag consumption in Ireland when thy started to charge for it. (BBC 20/8/02 - see Google). A reduction from 300millions to 23 millions. What is the argument for continuing free bags ? ? ?

It's clear for most of us to see that the production and waste of billions of disposable plastic bags a year can't be a particuarly good thing...Toby, Newport Very true, Toby. However, what's not so clear is why re-usable bags are necessarily better for the environment. 1) Part of the problem about the plastic bag is this myth of its single use. I suspect many of them are re-used (mine are). 2) Tougher re-usable bags (that cost) from the supermarket seem a much more complex product. 3) I've seen no figures comparing the cost of manufacture of a 50-100 use bag vs that of a single use (call it 3 use) plastic bag. People seem to assume as its used more, it much be better. That might not be the case.

The co-op supply reusable plastic bags that biodegrade in less than 2 years. If they can do it so can the others. Even if its not killing so many animals they are still unwelcome polluting the environment

I think Lord Taverne is wrong. The ingestion of plastic particles is not good for our health nor for other life forms. While it is true that large mammals are harmed more by fishing nets and lines, the scientific community does not have the resources nor it seems the will to undertake extensive biopsies of so many species, to find out the effects of plastics - when it cannot even do with its own! There is less risk in replacing plastic bags, and more benefits from doing so. Of course he right to point out that the direct cause of death in many cases is not plastic, but then we should look at contributory factors - where a toxic agent such as plastic undermines an organism so that its ability to survive is compromised.

Regardless of whether the science is 100% accurate or not, it's clear for most of us to see that the production and waste of billions of disposable plastic bags a year can't be a particuarly good thing. Most of the major supermarkets have tougher re-usable bags for about 10p, and quite often give them away free, so it's not really much of an effort to try and cut down on the amount of bags we waste. Whether the figures given for the amount of birds and animals killed is accurate of not, none of us are keen on seeing the litter that these bags can create, especially by morons who don't even dispose of them in a bin. This article seems to me more like an attempt to knock the Daily Mail's campaign to ban plastic bags, rather than a decent piece of responsible journalism. I'm no fan of the Daily Mail, and I'm sure they've just jumped ona bandwagon, but I find this article in the Times fairly dissapointing.

Animals apart, plastic bags are a blight on the landscape the world over - no matter where you go, they are all over the countryside, caught in undergrowth. Biggest problem seems to be the human user's ignorance, not the bags themselves.

Plastic does contaminate the world. Great piece in the Los Angeles Times about a giant swirl of plastic near Midway Island that is the twice the size of Texas. The pile of debris that comes ashore on the island is over ten feet and the giant albatros is losing it's chicks to plastics that they swallow and the chicks cannot digest them. Do not believe the pro plasitc liars it is a fact that plastic is killing our animals quickly and drastically around the world. Garbage from mainland Asia and America swirls together in the pacific and looks like a giant tolite.

No need to worry about bad science on plastic bags. I imagine most of us are now totally immune to the incessant drip of so-called scientific reports on every subject under the sun, and their subsequent discrediting. Whatever happened to the boring old principle of proving before publishing? - No fat sponsorship? But it's still quite satisfying to recycle.

All I know, is that 26 years ago we were told that plastic bags were good for the environment and we should use plastic bags instead of paper bags to 'save the trees'. I never cared for plastic bags and have received many dirty looks when asking for paper. Unfortunately, through the years I've seen plastic bags flying around on windy days attaching themselves to trees and poles, and knew that my paper bags were biodegradable.

Plastics are made from non-renewable natural resources such as crude oil, gas and coal. According to the 2002 Nolan ITU Report for Environment Australia on Plastic Shopping Bags - Analysis of Levies and Environmental Impacts. just 8.7 plastic checkout bags contain enough embodied petroleum energy to drive a car 1 kilometre. Plastic bags are recyclable. If plastic is not recycled, this embodied energy is lost from the resource chain.

Plastic bags have been around for 30 years now. It is estimated world wide that 1 trillion bags are used and discarded every year. Australians use 3.92 billion plastic bags a year, thats over 10 million new bags being usedeveryday. An estimated3.76 billion bagsor 20,700 tonnes of plastic are disposed of in landfill sites throughout Australia every year. Australians dump 7,150 recyclable plastic bags into landfills every minute or 429,000 bags every hour. It is estimated that around 50 million bags enter the Australian litter stream every year. Unless they are collected, they remain in the environment and accumulate at a staggering rate. If these 50 million plastic bags were made into a single plastic sheet, it would bebig enough to cover the Melbourne CBD.

In 2006, 33.7% of all items collected on Clean Up Australia Day were plastic and 7.4% of all plastic items were supermarket retail shopping bags. An average of half a million shopping bags are collected every year on Clean Up Australia day. Plastic shopping bags appeared in the Top Ten Rubbish Items in the 2006 Clean Up Australia Day Rubbish Report.

There are 2 types of plastic bags. 1. High Density Polyethylene (HDPE) bags - They are the thin singlet bags used by over 80% of retailers, including supermarkets. These can be recycled at most supermarkets. Generally they are not collected through your local kerbside recycling, however one or two local councils are currently trialling their collection - contact your local council first to see if they collect plastic bags. 2. Low Density Polyethylene (LDPE) bags -These are the thicker bags used by less than 20% of retailers, usually for luxury goods. While they can be recycled there are few collection points. Check with your local council to see if they collect LDPE plastics.

Many thousands of marine mammals and seabirds die every year around the world as a result of plastic litter. When the animal dies and decays the plastic is free again to repeat the deadly cycle. There are 2 major reasons that plastic bags are particularly problematic in the litter stream. 1. They last from 20 - 1 000 years2. They escape and float easily in air and water, travelling long distances

Because plastic bags last so long, every year, the number of plastic bags in the litter stream increases. Currently, only 3% per cent of plastic bags used in Australia are recycled. Click here to download the Clean Up Australia Plastic Bag Fact Sheet (139.78kb)

(1) Worldwide Home Environmentalists Network home. vicnet. net. au/~when/plastic. htm (2) Environment Australia, Plastic Shopping Bags - Analysis of Levies and Environmental Impacts (Nolan ITU, 2002) www. deh. gov. au/industry/waste/plastic-bags/bags-analysis. html

Manufacturers and wholesalers of industrial plastic bags. Browse business directory to find companies that offer personalized plastic bags and plastic bags with company logo for advertising.

Custom Printed Stock Plastic Bags Large selection of custom printed and stock plastic bags. Order online or call us today.

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The Bag Co. Inc. We manufacture and market plastic bags of all types and sizes including reclosable Zippits, poly, medical, shopping, food and many other bags.

Better Containers Hillside, Illinois manufacturers of plastic bags-- extruders, printers and converters of poly bags, liners, sheeting, tubing and envelopes

Bradley's Plastic Bag Company Packaging products from polyethylene materials. Based in Downey, California.

Champion Plastics Provider of polyethylene bags, liners, covers, films, sheeting, tubing and shrink packaging.

Chantler Packaging Extruder, printer and converter of plastic bags, sleeves, sheeting and tubing, serving the produce, floral, bakery and industrial sectors.

Convex Plastics Ltd. Specialises in the design and manufacture of polyethylene flexible ready-made bags and films, promotional materials and labels.

Elkay Plastics Company, Inc. Development, production and just-in-time delivery of industrial and retail poly bags to the industrial packaging products distributor.

Interplast Group Ltd. Manufactures a complete line of plastic bags. The manufacturing facilities are located at Lolita, Texas.

International Plastics Online catalog and ordering of bags, liners, films, boxes, and additional packaging supplies.

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Midland Plastics Ltd. Manufacturer of wide array of industrial goods and supplies. Based in New Delhi.

Nalle Plastics Inc. Specializing in customized plastic netting for numerous applications and markets. Based in Austin, Texas.

Nexus Plastics Inc. Based in New Jersey, manufacturers custom made bags, sheeting and tubing in all types of polyethylene.

Plastic Packaging Inc. North Carolina based converter of flexible packaging materials, using high-speed flexographic presses and offering versatility with films and structures to meet your flexible packaging needs.

Custom Printed Stock Plastic Bags Large selection of custom printed and stock plastic bags. Order online or call us today.

Plastic bags can be a very important tool for your business. Custom printed plastic bags can get your company name out in the marketplace and potentially bring you new business. And other types of personalized plastic bags can offer something to your customer that they are unlikely to forget where it came from. Plastic bags have a variety of uses, making them very versatile and helpful to your overall business plan. Figuring out ways to incorporate wholesale plastic bags into your business can open up new doors and lead to an even more prosperous business. Consider the following when making the most of plastic bags.1. Have specialized plastic bags made for your next professional conference or trade show.2. When potential clients or other businesses visit your workplace, hand out your company information in plastic bags with logos.3. Offer samples or other giveaways in your retail store that are stuffed inside plastic merchandise bags.

Take custom printed plastic bags with you to your next professional event Conferences and trade shows are full of take-home gifts and company information. Make your handouts stand out by offering them in their own personalized plastic bag. That way all of the other giveaways that other businesses pick up will go inside of your company's bag. And when conference-goers go to sift through everything they acquired, they will be less likely to forget about your business because they will be easily reminded of your company just from the bag they took home with them.

Bags OnTheNet. com offers many plastic bag styles you can have customized. Bagbarn. com is a plastic bag distributor where you can purchase wholesale shopping bags. Keep company information packets inside customized plastic bags Rather than just handing potential clients a stack of company information, hand it to them inside of a personalized plastic bag. The plastic bag will not only keep all of the information in a safe place for your potential client but it will be more convenient for them as well. The bag in and of itself will serve as another reminder of your company and what you are offering to them as a client.

Aplasticbag. com has customized plastic bags that will fit any type of information you would like to include. You can also have custom plastic bags made at 4imprint. Give out samples and giveaways inside plastic bags with company logo designs At a retail store your customers shouldn't have to purchase something to leave with an impression from your store. As a new business or maybe during a special promotion, consider handing out samples or other tokens of your appreciation inside of plastic bags to show your thanks to customers that took the time to stop at your store. Clear plastic bags will allow the potential customers to show off what they received just by stopping through.

InkHead Promotional Products offers customized plastic bags in different shapes and sizes. MARCO Promotional Products offers several plastic bag choices.

When choosing the style of plastic bag you want, be sure to know ahead of time what you plan on putting inside. If you are going to put small, easily lost items inside, think about going with a drawstring bag. If you are handing out papers, go for a die-cut handle plastic bag.

Custom Printed Stock Plastic Bags Large selection of custom printed and stock plastic bags. Order online or call us today.

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Plastic Bags Resource Find Plastic Bags. Search listings and reviews of retailers, specialists and services in your local area now.

Plastic shopping bags, plastic take-out bags, plastic trash bags -- plastic bags may not generate a lot of excitement on your business agenda, but these often overlooked items are essential to many businesses. For instance, plastic bags are a staple in retail and restaurant operations. For these businesses, personalized plastic bags can play a vital role in an overall marketing plan. With the right plastic shopping bags, you can build your brand and reinforce your company image. And when customers leave your establishment carrying pre-printed plastic bags with your company name and logo, they become a walking billboard for other consumers to see. Plastic bags have dozens of other critical uses in the business arena, including plastic trash bags, plastic storage bags and more. To get the most bang for your buck from plastic bags.1. Choose plastic retail bags in colors and styles that fit the image of your business. 2. Make sure your plastic bags are sturdy enough to hold your products without breaking.3. Use personalized plastic bags with your store name, logo and perhaps your phone number, street address or website address.4. Follow vendor guidelines when providing artwork for personalized plastic bags.

Plastic retail bags Plastic shopping bags come in hundreds of styles - from bargain-basement basic varieties to unique upscale versions. The best plastic retail bags for your business depend largely on your industry - a hardware store has very different needs than an upscale clothing boutique. Also, you need to consider the size and weight of your merchandise when choosing plastic shopping bags.

Find plastic retail bags, such as plastic handle bags, Euro shopper plastic bags, plastic tote bags and preprinted plastic bags in numerous styles at Paper Mart, Uline Shipping Supplies and Action Bag Company. Plastic take-out bags for restaurants Many restaurants depend on a thriving take-out business to meet their financial goals. That means you need an ample supply of plastic take-out bags with handles for to-go orders. Printing plastic take-out bags with your company name, logo and phone number increases awareness about your restaurant.

Find plastic take-out bags at Uline Shipping Supplies and a variety of foodservice bags at BagBarn. com. Pre-printed plastic bags If you want to curb costs, check into pre-printed plastic bags that work for retail or restaurants.

The Nu-Era Group offers pre-printed plastic bags that say 'Thank You'. Promotional plastic bags for trade shows If trade shows play a part in your marketing plan, promotional plastic bags are an ideal giveaway. Imprinting your company name and/or logo on promotional plastic bags turns these simple totes into a walking calling card.

TradeshowExhibitor. com and Affinity Bag Co. offer a wide variety of promotional plastic bags for your trade show needs. Plastic bags for office supplies When it comes to plastic trash bags and plastic storage bags for everyday office use, you can find an adequate variety at major office supply stores.

Visit Office Depot or OfficeMax to order plastic trash bags and plastic storage bags. Industrial plastic bags To store equipment parts and other materials, industrial plastic bags are a popular and affordable choice. Anti-static plastic bags are especially useful for some industries, such as the computer and electronics fields.

Find industrial plastic bags at Uline Shipping Supplies, BagBarn. com or CentralPack. com. Recycled plastic bags Recycled plastic bags don't have to be dull or ugly. In fact, recycled plastic bags come in a variety of colors and styles that look just as good as non-recycled plastic bags. For retailers, going green can improve your image with environmentally conscious consumers.

Visit Earthpack for a variety of recycled plastic bags that can be personalized with your name and logo.

It pays to invest in good quality plastic bags. Consumers are more likely to re-use high-quality plastic bags, which provide you with free advertising.

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Plastic bags are one of those items that you may not have put much thought into for your business. However, personalized plastic bags may play a larger role in your marketing plan than you would have thought. Plastic bags are an inexpensive way to get your company name on the streets and into the homes of consumers everywhere. You can purchase basic plastic bags for as little as a few cents a piece. Custom printed plastic bags will run closer to 10 or 15 cents a piece for plastic T-shirt bags. Larger bags, possibly with rope handles, run more in the 50 cents to $1 range. Consider the following when evaluating the pricing and costs of plastic bags.1. Buying wholesale plastic bags can save you money.2. Plastic bags with logos can be customized for your business.3. Plastic bags come in a variety of styles, sizes and durability.

Buy plastic bags in bulk Many suppliers of plastic bags require that you purchase a minimum number of plastic bags. If you know you are going to need the plastic bags eventually, it pays to buy several cartons at a time. Saving a few dollars per carton can add up if you are buying multiple cartons. The difference between ordering 1,000 and 5,000 plastic bags is approximately $3 per carton of 1,000. That equals a savings of $15 on one order. If you go through plastic merchandise bags quickly, ordering wholesale shopping bags will be helpful to your bottom line.

Uline is a plastic bag distributor where you can buy plastic bags in bulk. Paper Mart, too, sells plastic retail bags in large quantities. Have plastic bags customized for your business One of the keys to having plastic bags work for you is to plaster your company name on the outside. Whether just your company logo is on the bag or the entire bag is printed with a picture or design that represents your company, plastic bags can be an important marketing tool. Custom plastic bags run slightly more than plain plastic bags. You can purchase custom plastic T-shirt bags for around 10 cents a piece. You will also have to factor in extra charges for multiple printed colors and setup fees. These fees can run upward of $50 per order.

Places like Premier Packaging have several plastic bag options you can customize for your business. You can also have plastic bags made for your company at 4 All Promos. Decide on the type of plastic bag you would like to purchase The price of plastic bags is ultimately due to the durability of the bag and any accessories such as handles and drawstrings that you want on the bag. Frosted plastic bags can cost on average 50 cents per bag for orders of 1,000 or more bags. The same frosted bag would cost around $1 a piece for minimum orders of around 100 bags. Drawstring bags generally run around 50 cents a piece but aren't offered in as many colors as some of the other choices. Depending on the size, colored supergloss plastic retail bags can be purchased for around 30 cents a piece.

Absorbent, Ink. carries several plastic bag varieties. Plastic BagMart, too, carries everything from clear plastic bags to drawstring plastic bags.

Think about purchasing a few different styles of plastic bags for your business. You can use the cheaper 10-cent bags for small items and larger printed bags for larger items that people passing by are more likely to notice.

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Plastic Bags Resource Find Plastic Bags. Search listings and reviews of retailers, specialists and services in your local area now.

Plastic bags can be a very important tool for your business. Custom printed plastic bags can get your company name out in the marketplace and potentially bring you new business. And other types of personalized plastic bags can offer something to your customer that they are unlikely to forget where it came from. Plastic bags have a variety of uses, making them very versatile and helpful to your overall business plan. Figuring out.

Tuesday, Whole Foods (WFMI) will announce plans to stop offering disposable, plastic grocery bags in all 270 stores in the USA, Canada and United Kingdom by Earth Day April 22. That means roughly 100 million plastic bags will be kept out of the environment between that date and the end of 2008, the company says. "This is something our customers want us to do," says A. C. Gallo, Whole Foods co-president. "It's central to our core values of caring for communities and the environment." In place of the fly-away plastic bags scorned by many environmentalists, Whole Foods will offer several options. free paper bags in four sizes made from 100% recycled paper, reusable bags 80% made from recycled plastic bottles for 99 cents and canvas bags selling for $6.99 to $35. It encourages consumers to bring their own bags by taking 5 cents to 10 cents off the bill for each. The move comes as cities, states and even countries are trying to eliminate non-biodegradable plastic bags from cityscapes, waterways and landfills. San Francisco banned them. Oakland is considering a ban. New York and New Jersey require retailers to recycle them. China announced a ban this month.

Among other retailers, most Trader Joe's stores use paper bags, though some offer plastic. Ikea's U. S. stores charge 5 cents for plastic bags, which is mostly donated to a conservation group. While Whole Foods is tiny compared with the rest of the retail grocery industry, its role as a trendsetter is huge. Whole Foods' success played a major role in nudging top supermarket chains to sell organic foods. "By getting ahead of the inevitable, Whole Foods will maintain and enhance its halo of superiority," says marketing consultant Pam Murtaugh. Americans throw away about 100 billion plastic bags annually, says Worldwatch, an environmental research group. It takes more than 1,000 years for a non-recyclable plastic bag to break down in a landfill, it says. "This is a big deal," says Lisa Mastny, consumption project director at Worldwatch. "We hope to see a domino effect." But not everyone is impressed. During a test in Austin, one angry customer wrote Whole Foods that he'll miss the plastic bags he uses for tossing out garbage. Some 92% of people re-use their plastic bags, says Keith Christman, senior director of packaging at the American Chemistry Council, a trade group. He says he's not concerned about Whole Foods' actions because the company "is different from other chains." In San Francisco, where most plastic bags are banned, it costs grocers twice as much to supply paper bags, but costs thus far have not been passed on to shoppers, says Dave Heylen, spokesman for the California Grocers Association. "Consumers are still in a learning curve."

For many years poly bags have been the nearly universal choice to protect products from dirt, dust, moisture and contamination of all kinds. They are inexpensive and available in an almost infinite range of types, styles and sizes. Name something that isnt packaged in a plastic bag. Bradleys has been manufacturing poly bags for more than 50 years. Our plastic bags are made from prime grades of resin. This ensures that our plastic bags may lawfully be used in food contact applications under FDA regulations at 21 CFR us. We carry a large selection of plastic bags in stock sizes, but our strength lies in our manufacturing capabilities. We are able to make plastic bags to your specifications. And do it quickly. If you require colors, printed film, heavy gauge, light gauge, large, small, anti-static, shrinkable, zipper, gusseted, polyethylene, polypropylene, foam, bubble, low slip We have it.

Small plastic bags made up about nine percent of the debris found along various U. S. coasts in a five-year study.

Plastic litter is estimated to take up to 1,000 years to decompose. This estimate is based on the decomposition rates of plastics buried in landfills for up to 100 years.

Cities around the world are moving to ban plastic shopping bags to protect the environment. A roundup.

• In April 2007, Leaf Rapids, a town of about 550 people in Canada's Manitoba, became the first municipality in North America to adopt a law forbidding the use of plastic bags by shops. The law calls for fines of as much as 1,000 Canadian dollars, though no one has yet received one, a town official says. Local businesses offer reusable cloth bags as an alternative. • In March 2007, San Francisco became the first city to ban common plastic shopping bags. At least 30 villages and towns in Alaska have followed suit. • In January, the New York City Council voted to require large stores and retail chains to recycle plastic bags. • The following U. S. cities are considering fees or bans of plastic bags. Austin, Texas. Bakersfield, Calif.. Boston. New Haven, Conn.. Portland, Ore.. Phoenix. and Annapolis, Md. • In Germany, stores provide consumers with the option of a plastic bag or a canvas- or cotton-made tote for a fee. Many German consumers carry their own bags when doing the shopping and it's not uncommon to see some using wicker baskets or wheeled carts. Stores that offer plastic bags have to pay a recycling fee. • In January, China announced a ban on stores handing out free plastic shopping bags. The ban takes effect June 1, two months before Beijing hosts the Summer Olympics. The measure will eliminate the flimsiest plastic bags and force stores to offer more durable bags. • Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania's Zanzibar islands have banned flimsy plastic, introducing minimum thickness requirements. Many independent supermarkets in Kenya's capital, Nairobi, now charge a small fee for each plastic bag but also give away a free, reusable basket with a minimum purchase. • In 2003, Ireland introduced a 22-cent levy on every plastic shopping bag. That, the government said, resulted in a big drop in the number of bags that stores were handing out. Some switched to paper bags. others stopped handing out bags completely. In July 2007, Ireland raised the fee to 32 cents. • Shopkeepers in the English town of Modbury, which has about 1,500 residents, eliminated disposable plastic bags, while some of the country's big grocery chains have offered customers money-saving incentives to reuse old bags. • The Swedish government is encouraging plastic bag producers to continually develop greener bags. Two of the Nordic country's biggest grocery chains have made biodegradable paper bags and reusable cloth bags available to shoppers.

In San Francisco, the age-old question "Paper or plastic?" was answered one year ago this week. The city banned hard-to-recycle plastic bags in grocery stores, and so far, that translates into 5 million fewer plastic bags every month. Now, other cities are considering similar bans, and companies are developing alternatives to disposable bags. San Francisco politician Ross Mirkarimi didn't know just what a stir he was going to cause. On March 27, 2007, the city passed his bill to eventually ban plastic bags from all the city's grocery stores and pharmacies. And now, cities across the United States, including Boston, Portland, Ore., and Phoenix, are considering similar bans. "This has probably been one of the most interesting wildfires of common sense, and I'm delighted and proud that San Francisco was the first city in the United States to have kick-started this," Mirkarimi says. And not just in the U. S. Mirkarimi says Paris and London contacted him and now have passed similar bans. In the U. S., the ban has had a few unintended consequences in the marketplace. North of San Francisco in the small town of Oroville, one manufacturer of plastic bags actually got a boost in business. Roplast Industries makes large, thick, reusable plastic bags. They contain more plastic than the flimsy, single-use bags, but in the long-term, says Roplast President Robert Bateman, they're better for the environment. The company's bag "will hold five or six times as much as the standard disposable bag," he says. "And it is reusable. It can dramatically change the amount of plastic used." Of course, those thicker, heavier plastic bags are still plastic. If you don't like that idea, Roplast has another choice compostable plastic bags. Compostable plastic may seem like a contradiction in terms. But Bateman says it makes sense to use plastic that degrades. Critics point out they degrade but they don't biodegrade. That is, they break down, but they just break down into smaller bits of plastic. Just up the highway, in the town of Chico, Andy Keller has another idea the ChicoBag, an environmentally friendly nylon-fiber carrying bag that folds up into a tiny wallet-sized stuff sack. When the ChicoBag is held in the palm of your hand, it looks like a really, really tiny sleeping bag. "People carry them in their back pocket or their purse or their cup holder or the glove compartment of their car, and it allows them to have a bag whenever they need it," Keller says. California's grocery store industry would like to keep its plastic bags. They're cheaper than paper, and the industry says it wants to offer customers choice —. paper, plastic and reusable bags. The plastics industry has been more aggressive, trying to halt plastic bag bans before they can start. The Bay Area city of Fairfax last week abandoned its bag ban under threat of a lawsuit by the plastic bag industry. Fairfax has about 7,000 residents, and Mayor Mary Ann Maggiore says there's no way it could handle a lengthy lawsuit. The plastics industry said it would sue on environmental grounds. Sharon Kneiss of the American Chemistry Council says that, by banning plastic, Fairfax was giving a tacit endorsement to use paper bags, which could hurt the environment. "Bans on plastic bags are not a good environmental choice," she says. "Bans aren't the answer, recycling is the answer." The town of Fairfax, though, isn't giving up. It's made its ban voluntary, and Maggiore says that most shopkeepers have stopped handing out plastic bags. On top of that, advocates in Fairfax plan to take on the plastic bag industry again. They expect to put the issue on a ballot in June.

THE days of the plastic bag are numbered, with the Environment Minister, Peter Garrett, likely to impose either a levy on each bag handed to shoppers, or to ban them outright within 12 months. Mr Garrett has confirmed he will move to phase out bags by the end of the year, after consulting state governments in March. He is committed to working co-operatively but with a legislative ban if necessary, a spokeswoman for Mr Garrett said. Banning plastic bags, which are made from polluting petrochemicals and known to be deadly to wildlife, has been Labor policy since 2004, when it was announced by the former leader Mark Latham. NSW and most other states have been pushing for levies or a ban since the Tasmanian village of Coles Bay became the first town to ban plastic bags altogether in 2003.The move has been applauded by green groups but retailers, including major supermarket chains Coles and Woolworths, are still opposed to an enforced ban. It's just a simplification to contemplate banning plastic bags just because people see them floating in the water, the executive director of the Australian Retailers Association, Richard Evans, said. Where do you draw the line - fashion shops, local markets?Mr Evans said retailers were aware of the risks to the environment posed by free bag distribution but a system of voluntary compliance would work best and some shoppers wouldn't want to switch to paper bags. Some businesses, such as Bunnings Warehouse, have already achieved massive cuts in plastic bag use by imposing a levy on each bag, while fast-food chains, including McDonald's, have switched to paper bags. Jon Dee, the founder of the environmental group Planet Ark, said consumers had been using paper bags and reusable bags for their shopping for many years and the move would present no problems. Plastic bags are a sign of environmental laziness because they carry that idea that 'out of sight is out of mind', he said. Mr Dee said there was a lack of co-ordinated research on the impact of plastic bags on wildlife but the amount of anecdotal evidence was overwhelming. As well as having the potential to strangle fish and some mammals, the average plastic shopping bag consumes about as much energy in its life cycle as a teaspoonful of crude oil. Australia uses about 4 billion plastic bags a year, with most going to landfill. Even there, controlling bags is difficult. the waste depot at Eastern Creek in Sydney has some staff whose sole job is to collect bags that might otherwise enter the ocean. The Federal Government's proposal came as China, which consumes as many bags in 48 hours as Australia does in a year, announced it would be imposing a levy on bags. Ireland cut plastic bag use by 90 per cent by imposing a levy. Good, bad ugly- The energy consumed in the life cycle of a plastic bag is estimated to be equivalent to 13.8 millilitres of crude oil, or about a teaspoonful.- Between 3.9 billion and 4.5 billion plastic bags were thought to have been used in Australia in 2005.- 34 per cent fewer bags were used in 2005 than in 2002.- Most lightweight plastic bags used in Australia are made overseas.

To follow up on the last post. after hearing about Karin Carters SLiK textile last summer, I set out to make some myself. Ironing plastic bags together required careful control of the iron temperature also, laying the plastic between two layers of paper helped transfer the heat more evenly. The result was a paper-like material similar to Tyvek, made by DuPont, which could either be sewn or melted to form seams. Tyvek and similar materials have been use in a range of products one that comes to mind is American Apparels Tyvek jacket. Its very lightweight, and is more like fabric than paper. Tyvek is not accepted at most recycling programs however DuPont runs a Tyvek recycling program in the US. Larger images. Outside Inside Popularity. 34%

Digg this | Hugg this See Also. Airmail Envelope Wallet, Plastic Bag Lamp Shade, Enter Instructables Go Green Contest,

I like the patterns on the plastic bags it almost looks like some kind of expensive paper. Also, duct tape gets gummed up, you know? But yeah, especially with colored duct tapes it can be very cool also.

Could you post more detailed instructions on how you made the fabric? Stuff like number of layers of plastic bags, iron temperature, etc. I would love to try this myself

[.] Baby, I Got Your Money Vestal Design blog provides a great way to make your own wallet using old plastic bags From Jeffrey Warren. This time the bags are actually ironed together, making a Tyvek-like substance, according to the review. I really like the final look of the wallets. [.]

Great thing to do with plastic bags! Just as an idea maybe instead of a safeway bag you could get your hands on a gucci or armani plastic bag and create a designer version. Dont even know if gucci uses plastic bags. Good luck. Karen

WATERLOO Getting ordinary plastic bags to rot away like banana peels would be an environmental dream come true. After all, we produce 500 billion a year worldwide and they take up to 1,000 years to decompose. They take up space in landfills, litter our streets and parks, pollute the oceans and kill the animals that eat them. Now a Waterloo teenager has found a way to make plastic bags degrade faster -- in three months, he figures. Daniel Burd's project won the top prize at the Canada-Wide Science Fair in Ottawa. He came back with a long list of awards, including a $10,000 prize, a $20,000 scholarship, and recognition that he has found a practical way to help the environment. Daniel, a 16-year-old Grade 11 student at Waterloo Collegiate Institute, got the idea for his project from everyday life. Almost every week I have to do chores and when I open the closet door, I have this avalanche of plastic bags falling on top of me, he said. One day, I got tired of it and I wanted to know what other people are doing with these plastic bags. The answer. not much. So he decided to do something himself. He knew plastic does eventually degrade, and figured microorganisms must be behind it. His goal was to isolate the microorganisms that can break down plastic -- not an easy task because they don't exist in high numbers in nature. First, he ground plastic bags into a powder. Next, he used ordinary household chemicals, yeast and tap water to create a solution that would encourage microbe growth. To that, he added the plastic powder and dirt. Then the solution sat in a shaker at 30 degrees. After three months of upping the concentration of plastic-eating microbes, Burd filtered out the remaining plastic powder and put his bacterial culture into three flasks with strips of plastic cut from grocery bags. As a control, he also added plastic to flasks containing boiled and therefore dead bacterial culture. Six weeks later, he weighed the strips of plastic. The control strips were the same. But the ones that had been in the live bacterial culture weighed an average of 17 per cent less. That wasn't good enough for Burd. To identify the bacteria in his culture, he let them grow on agar plates and found he had four types of microbes. He tested those on more plastic strips and found only the second was capable of significant plastic degradation. Next, Burd tried mixing his most effective strain with the others. He found strains one and two together produced a 32 per cent weight loss in his plastic strips. His theory is strain one helps strain two reproduce. Tests to identify the strains found strain two was Sphingomonas bacteria and the helper was Pseudomonas. A researcher in Ireland has found Pseudomonas is capable of degrading polystyrene, but as far as Burd and his teacher Mark Menhennet know -- and they've looked -- Burd's research on polyethelene plastic bags is a first. Next, Burd tested his strains' effectiveness at different temperatures, concentrations and with the addition of sodium acetate as a ready source of carbon to help bacteria grow. At 37 degrees and optimal bacterial concentration, with a bit of sodium acetate thrown in, Burd achieved 43 per cent degradation within six weeks. The plastic he fished out then was visibly clearer and more brittle, and Burd guesses after six more weeks, it would be gone. He hasn't tried that yet. To see if his process would work on a larger scale, he tried it with five or six whole bags in a bucket with the bacterial culture. That worked too. Industrial application should be easy, said Burd. All you need is a fermenter . . . your growth medium, your microbes and your plastic bags. The inputs are cheap, maintaining the required temperature takes little energy because microbes produce heat as they work, and the only outputs are water and tiny levels of carbon dioxide -- each microbe produces only 0.01 per cent of its own infinitesimal weight in carbon dioxide, said Burd. This is a huge, huge step forward . . . We're using nature to solve a man-made problem. Burd would like to take his project further and see it be used. He plans to study science at university, but in the meantime he's busy with things such as student council, sports and music. Dan is definitely a talented student all around and is poised to be a leading scientist in our community, said Menhennet, who led the school's science fair team but says he only helped Burd with paperwork. Other local students also did well at the national science fair. Devin Howard of St. John's Kilmarnock School won a gold medal in life science and several scholarships. Mackenzie Carter of St. John's Kilmarnock won bronze medals in the automotive and engineering categories. Engineers Without Borders awarded Jeff Graansma of Forest Heights Collegiate a free trip to their national conference in January. Zach Elgood of Courtland Avenue Public School got honourable mention in earth and environmental us

Critics blame the carrier bag for all manner of eco-ills. But is there nothing good about plastic bags? Made from petroleum. And in China. Disposable. And fluttering from a tree branch or sitting sodden in a gutter near you. It's little wonder that plastic bags are the environmental scourge of our age. From Ireland to Bangladesh, the United States to Uganda, there are moves to curb their use through taxes or bans. The British government so far refuses to follow suit, but villages, towns and cities have imposed individual crackdowns. Among the first was Modbury in Devon, which on Thursday made its trial ban permanent. But what say its fans? Very little, for this is the love that dare not speak its name. Yet a stash stuffed into a larger plastic bag or purpose-made dispenser has become a household fixture. Here are 10 reasons to love carrier bags. 1. Plastic bags don't litter, people do. 2. Witches knickers. National flower. White pollution. The unlovely sight of plastic bags in their wild state are given poetic names in Ireland, South Africa and China respectively. 3. Unlike cloth or paper, plastic contains nasty smells and seepages. Hence their popularity with dog owners and parents of children young enough to be in nappies.

4. And what plastic doesn't let out, it also doesn't let in. Many a Wimbledon fan has fashioned a makeshift rain hat from a plastic bag when the inevitable deluge interrupts play. And a carrier bag makes a handy saddle cover for cyclists. 5. Being durable and waterproof makes plastic bags a boon for users of public transport, enabling them to carry more without recourse to a car. 6. Reuse is as big with environmentalists as recycling. Even with taxes and bans, carrier bags will still accumulate in our homes so we need to find ways to extend their useful life. Handily, they are the perfect size for lining bathroom or office bins. When Ireland imposed its Plastax in 2002, sales of bin liners rose, says Richard Dodd, of the British Retail Consortium. 7. Free money is on offer for those who reuse their plastic bags at the supermarket. And as the phrase goes, look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves.

8. Weigh a plastic bag. Light as a feather. Keen recyclers will hardly break a sweat lugging a bag of empties to the supermarket recycling point. Which is also a handy place to restock should you buy too many groceries to fit in your Anya Hindmarsh I'm Not A Plastic Bag bag. 9. Uncomfortable with must-have bag syndrome, be it the latest designer handbag or a £5 eco-tote? The plastic carrier bag is the perfect riposte to rampant consumerism. But it is also a symptom of our enthusiasm for buying stuff. Such a duality speaks volumes about our modern age, which is perhaps why it is de rigueur for arts students to carry plastic bags. 10. It's embarrassing being mistaken for a shoplifter while carting a paid-for - but un-bagged - item from the store. Despite the more sustainable alternatives available, there will always be a need for carrier bags, says Mr Dodd. "They are needed when you buy stuff spontaneously, and few of the bags people have at home will be suitable if they buy a new suit or gadget."

And he believes plastic bags have been unfairly demonised as an environmental blight. Three percent of waste in UK landfills is packaging, and a 10th of 1% are carrier bags. When San Francisco was preparing for its bag ban earlier this year, a litter audit found that plastic bags accounted for 0.6% of rubbish. Having come into mainstream use in the early 1980s, plastic carrier bags are already heading for extinction in the switch to biodegradable materials. What snapshot of our age will future archaeologists deduce when they unearth centuries-old bags of dog poo?

Once let loose into the environment, plastic bags can cause considerable harm, blocking drains and suffocating wildlife mistaking the bag for food.

The environmental issues associated with plastic shopping bags have featured in the news in the last couple of months, following the apparent success of the plastic bag tax in Ireland in reducing the number of plastic shopping bags that are used in that country. While this approach has also been suggested for addressing the problem in Australia, the government will examine a number of options before deciding on a management plan. In the meantime, the best thing we can do for the environment is simply reuse, or better yet, refuse a plastic bag when we go shopping. Easy!

Plastic shopping bags have a surprisingly significant environmental impact for something so seemingly innocuous. As well as being an eyesore (next time you are outside, have a look around - you'll be amazed at the number of plastic bags littering our streets and waterways), plastic shopping bags kill large numbers of wildlife each year. In the water, plastic bags can be mistaken for jellyfish by wildlife. This makes plastic bag pollution in marine environments particularly dangerous, as birds, whales, seals and turtles ingest the bags then die from intestinal blockages. Disturbingly, it is claimed that plastic bags are the most common man-made item seen by sailors at sea.

The biggest problem with plastic bags is that they do not readily break down in the environment, with estimates for the time it takes them to decompose ranging from 20 to 1000 years. One of the disquieting facts stemming from this is that plastic bags can become serial killers. Once an animal that had ingested a plastic bag dies, it decays at a much faster rate than the bag. Once the animal has decomposed, the bag is released back into the environment more or less intact, ready to be eaten by another misguided organism. The incredibly slow rate of decay of plastic bags also means that each bag we use compounds the problem, because the bags simply accumulate.

Not only an environmental strain but an economic one. Collecting plastic bags from our drains is only part of the cost.

Plastic bags also clog drains and waterways, threatening not only natural environments but also urban ones. In fact, plastic bags in drains were identified as major factors in the severe flooding in Bangladesh in 1988 and 1998. This has resulted in a ban on plastic bags being imposed there early in 2002.

On top of the significant environmental costs, widespread use of plastic bags is also costly in terms of dollars and cents. Apart from the price of the bags themselves, which is four to six cents each, a great deal of money goes into collecting the bags (ie cleaning up!) once they've been discarded.

Australians use around 6 billion plastic bags per year, 3.3 billion of which are supermarket plastic bags.

Plastic bags are made from ethylene, a gas that is produced as a by-product of oil, gas and coal production. Ethylene is made into polymers (chains of ethylene molecules) called polyethylene. This substance, also known as polyethene or polythene, is made into pellets which are used by plastic manufacturers to produce a range of items, including plastic bags.

You have probably noticed that there are two types of plastic shopping bags - the lighter, filmy bags you get from supermarkets and other food outlets, and the heavier bags you get from other retail outlets, like clothing stores. The supermarket bags are made from high density polyethylene (HDPE), while the thicker bags are made from low density polyethylene (LDPE). Unlike HDPE, LDPE can not be recycled.

While plastic bags may not be the most high tech application of plastics technology, it is certainly one of the most prevalent. According to Clean Up Australia, Australians use in excess of 6 billion plastic bags per year. If tied together these bags would form a chain that is long enough to go around the world 37 times. More than half of these bags (3.6 billion) are made from HDPE.

With this number of plastic bags in circulation, it is of little surprise that plastic bags are a significant pollutant. On Clean Up Australia Day in 2002 nearly half a million plastic bags were collected.

Different countries have adopted a range of approaches to discourage the use of plastic bags in an attempt to cut down on the number of bags finding their way into the environment. In South Africa for instance, where an estimated eight billion plastic bags are used annually, the government has implemented new regulations that will see only thicker, more durable plastic bags produced. As well as making them more suitable for reuse, it is hoped that the extra cost associated with their production and supply will prevent retailers giving the higher quality bags away, making their use a more expensive option for consumers.

The use of plastic bags is being discouraged in other countries such as Singapore and Taiwan, while the tax imposed on the use of plastic shopping bags in Ireland has resulted in the use of plastic shopping bags being reduced by 90% in just six months. Prior to the 15 euro cent per bag tax, it was estimated that 1.2 million plastic shopping bags were being handed out in Ireland per year. The money raised from the tax will be used to fund environmental initiatives.

We'll have to wait and see if any of these measures will be adopted in Australia to address the problem here. In September 2002 federal Independent MP Peter Andren and Greens Senator Bob Brown introduced private member's bills into parliament that would put a 25 cent levy on plastic shopping bags, and direct the funds raised to an education program publicising the environmental costs of plastic bags in Australia. This bill was not passed, with the Minister for the Environment and Heritage Dr David Kemp preferring to explore voluntary options for plastic bag control, before imposing another tax on the Australian public.

While Canberra decides on a national plan of action to reduce the problem of plastic bag pollution, it's easy to put a household action plan in place.

Recycling your plastic shopping bags is one of the most obvious courses of action, however only 10% of Australian households take their plastic bags to a central collection point for recycling. This could be due to the fact that HDPE bags can not be put out for collection with other household recyclables, and there is no separate kerbside collection for them as the volume does not support the cost. Instead, bags must be taken to central recycling collection points, such as supermarkets, where there are special bins to collect the bags. Even at these central collection points there is a risk that the bags may end up unsuitable for recycling due to a range of contaminants such as LDPE bags, ink, food, even supermarket dockets if they are left in the bags.

Refugees from Ethiopia help keep the environment clean by using their weaving skills in a most unique way - creating useful household items, like these baskets, from used plastic bags.

Prior to recycling, of course, the aim should be to reuse your bags. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, less than 1% of plastic bags used in Australia are reused, however 82.6% of Australian households say that they reuse plastic bags. This list of possible uses for plastic shopping bags is almost as long as the lifespan of the bag itself!

If you don't want to take your bags back to the supermarket to use again next time you buy your groceries, there are a multitude of ways you can use them around the house, limited only by your imagination. One thing they should not be used for is lining garbage bins. It doesn't matter if you put them straight in your bin as waste or put your other garbage in them, the plastic bags will still end up in landfill, and potentially at large in the environment.

Given the costs and inconvenience associated with recycling, and the fact that reuse only delays the plastic entering the environment, the most sensible option is to cut down on the number of plastic bags that you use, or stop using them altogether. It is estimated that it takes the average Australian family four shopping trips to accumulate 60 plastic shopping bags. If everyone accepted one less plastic bag every time they went shopping, the number of bags used would be reduced substantially.

If each Australian family used one less plastic shopping bag each week, Australians would save 253 million plastic bags a year.

There are a range of alternatives to plastic bags. Some retailers save the cardboard cartons that stock is packaged in, so customers can use them to pack their groceries. Others may offer paper bags. Some major supermarket chains have string or calico bags available for sale at a very small price. These bags can be kept in the car and used again and again. The advantage of calico bags is that they are stronger than the plastic bags, and also much easier to carry. It takes a little thought to get used to bringing your own bags, but it is an easy habit to fall into and it is such a relief not to have to pack the groceries away, and then find room to pack away the plastic bags as well!

There are of course situations where you can't beat a plastic shopping bag, such as when buying meat or "messy" items. Thankfully, technology is catching up with the need for a replacement for polythene bags. It was recently reported that supermarkets in Australia will introduce biodegradable bags made from tapioca starch in April 2003. These bags will look and feel like polythene bags but will decompose in three months.

So next time you go shopping, hold your head up proudly as you reuse or refuse a plastic bag. You may not be in a rubber dinghy chasing a whaling boat or pursuing ivory poachers, but you have made a contribution to the future of the planet.

The raw material of plastic bags is oil. Therefore, the more we use plastic bags, the more we waste oil - a non-renewable energy source.

The petroleum-based plastic bags take decades to break down, so if they are not recycled they litter. It creates visual pollution. in the streets, on the beaches etc. Also, they can clog roadside drains, which could cause street flooding during heavy rainfall.

Plastic bags can be recycled but it rarely happens. according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, only 1% of plastic bags were recycled in 2000, against twenty percent for paper bags.

For the past few years, there has been rising international awareness regarding the damaging and dangerous impact on the environment of plastic bags. Governments all over the world have decided to get involved in that particular issue. Some governments have decided to ban them. Bangladesh, Bhutan and Zanzibar. Plastic bags should no more be given for free in China from June 1st. These bags are surcharged in Germany, South Africa, Ireland and Israel. Several countries try and promote, through major retailers, the use of cloth bags, paper bags or grocery bags. United Kingdom (with Tesco), France (with Carrefour), New Zealand. In the U. S. Plastic bags are already used less than paper bags by American consumers, and there have been no government actions to further curb their use. But large cities such as San Francisco and Portland, OR, have planned or plan to ban plastic bags, whereas Seattle, WA will certainly launch a 20 cent “green fee” on plastic bags.

Reuse your plastic shopping bags. use them as trash so as not to buy others that are more energy wasting. use them for storage.

Use paper bags rather than plastic bags when you are given the choice, but keep in mind that paper bags generate 70 percent more air and 50 times more water pollutants than plastic bags, and it takes more than four times as much energy to manufacture a paper bag as it does to manufacture a plastic bag.

Plastic Bags are everywhere. Plastic bags are synonymous with shopping. Stores give out over a billion plastic bags per day to customers all over the world. It is estimated that between 500 billion and 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed a year! These bags have many benefits. however, they also do a huge amount of environmental damage. This website serves to make available both sides of the plastic bag story. however, a conclusion is reached about what to do if anything about plastic bags. Explore this website to find out more information on the costs, benefits, problems, solutions, and conclusions to the plastic bag story. Also don't forget to sign my guestbook, and please vote!

Plastic bags have become the subject of huge debate in early 2008. Why is everyone suddenly so interested? Jessica Aldred reports

Last week M&S announced that it planned to introduce a 5p charge for plastic grocery bags in England from February next year. Photograph. Martin Godwin

Today, MS announced that the chain would charge food customers 5p for every plastic carrier bag they use. The charge is aimed at reducing demand for the bags, and Marks and Spencer says the money raised from the levy will be spent on improving parks and play areas across the country. Earlier this week, the Daily Mail dedicated its first nine pages to the issue of plastic bags. Accompanying the front page splash headline Banish the Bags, the Mail showed contrasting pictures of a British family carrying numerous plastic bags from their weekly shop and a turtle swimming among discarded plastic bags. The paper was aiming to highlight the 13bn bags given away each year by British retailers and graphically depicted the environmental impact of plastic waste in a series of images showing animals chomping on bags or swathed in plastic. And on Tuesday, China annnounced that its war against "white pollution" had claimed its first large-scale victim with the closure of the country's biggest plastic bag manufacturer. The shutdown of Suiping Huaqiang Plastic, which employs 20,000 people, highlighted the social costs of a government drive to clean up one of the world's most polluted environments. It comes less than two months after the state banned production of ultra-thin bags and ordered supermarkets to stop giving away free carriers from June 1.

Traders in 80 mainly small towns round Britain have either introduced a voluntary ban or are considering one as a way to reduce landfill. Brighton and Hove council is the largest authority in Britain to offer support for a voluntary ban. Cities around the world, from San Francisco to Dacca in Bangladesh, have vastly reduced the number of bags being issued by imposing taxes. Many towns in Britain have been inspired by the action of Rebecca Hosking, who persuaded all 34 local shops in her home town of Modbury in south Devon to substitute their plastic bags with reusable cloth bags. The BBC camerawoman was moved to do this when she saw albatrosses, turtles and dolphins choking to death on plastic while filming in the Pacific last year.

Around 13bn plastic bags are given free to UK shoppers every year. The bags can take between 400-1,000 years to break down, and like all forms of plastic they do not biodegrade. Instead they photodegrade, breaking down into smaller and smaller toxic bits that contaminate soil, waterways and oceans, entering the food chain when ingested by animals. Many plastic bags end up as waste on our beaches, streets and parks. When a plastic bag enters the ocean it becomes a harmful piece of litter. Many marine animals mistake plastic bags for food and swallow them, with painful and often fatal consequences. Nearly 90% of floating marine litter is plastic.

Marks Spencer announced its 5p charge plans for England last year following a successful trial in Northern Ireland, which led to a 66% reduction in the number of bags used by customers. Sainsbury's reported a fall in the use of free carrier bags of 10% during six months last year, while the use of reusable bags rose by nearly 50%. Since February 2007, all of its free bags have been made from 33% recycled plastic. A "bag for life" cost 10p, though they are sometimes given away. The supermarket said that if all its customers reused these bags 20 times, it would save 90m disposable bags a year. It has also sold £5 cotton bags designed by Anya Hindmarch with the slogan "I'm not a plastic bag", and had a one-day moratorium on plastic bags in April 2007.Tesco, the UK's largest supermarket, gives out 4bn free plastic bags each year, but allocates reward points to shoppers who refuse them. Online shoppers can choose bag-free delivery. The supermarket's carrier bags are biodegradable. Asda gives out free disposable bags, although all those returned to the store are recycled. The supermarket sells reusable bags for 5p and jute bags for 97p. Cash register operators are instructed to offer fewer plastic bags to customers. Waitrose was the first supermarket to introduce reusable bags, which it sells for 10p. It claims that in 2005 this helped reduce the number of disposable bags distributed by 54m. But it still hands out 250m free disposable bags a year to its customers.

Refuse plastic bags in shops, and try to recycle or reuse the ones you do have. Buy a woven cotton "eco-shopper" bag and keep it with you for when you need to go to the shops.

Yes, but you must start the campaign yourself, or with a group. Don't rely on councils or supermarkets. Get the trust of the traders by approaching them directly - a handout is not enough. Gauge public support to encourage supermarkets and multiples to take part, and learn about what plastics are doing to the environment and research every type of alternative bag on the market. Set a date for the ban and go for it.

The Plastic Bag Levy will increase to 22 cent on Sunday 1st July 2007. Since its introduction on 4th March 2002 the plastic bag levy had an immediate effect on consumer behaviour – with plastic bag per capita usage decreasing overnight from an estimated 328 bags to 21. Income from the levy has been increasing in the recent past. Data from levies remitted and the results of the 2006 Census, would indicate that plastic bag usage rose to 31 bags per capita during the course of 2006. It is vital that the levy’s positive effect on the environment is maintained. To that effect the levy will be increased to 22 cent on Sunday 1st July 2007. The aim of the increase is to reduce the per capita usage to the level achieved in 2002 or lower. If this is achieved, the levy increase will not generate any additional revenue for the Environment Fund.

Plastic Bag (Amendment ) (No. 2) Regulations (S. I. 167 of 2007), amending SI No. 605 of 2001(Available in the Publications Documents box on the right).

Public Notice Announcing Increase in Plastic bag Levy. (Available in the Publications Documents box on the right).

Revenue Commissioners Information Leaflet (PB1) on the Increase in Plastic bag Levy. (Available in the Publications Documents box on the right).

Background to the Plastic Bag Levy Plastic bag consumption increased alarmingly in Ireland in the 1990s. Retail outlets placed no limits on the amount of bags consumers could use when doing their shopping. One of the most significant side effects of this trend was the careless disposal of plastic bags by consumers after use – a significant proportion of which ended up as highly visible components of litter. Furthermore, because of their composition, nearly all plastic bags do not degrade. Thus, in addition to being highly visible because of the volumes being carelessly disposed, they also became highly persistent pollutants in urban, rural and coastal settings. This trend was also undermining Ireland’s clean, green image on which the Irish tourism industry depends. The primary purpose of the plastic bag levy is to reduce the consumption of disposable plastic bags by influencing consumer behaviour. Since its introduction on the 4 March 2002 the levy has been an outstanding success. Prior to the introduction of the levy it is estimated that over 1.2 billion plastic bags were dispensed free of charge at retail outlets annually, equating to roughly 328 bags per inhabitant per year. The fall in the consumption of plastic bags has been considerable with the reduction being estimated at over 90%. Our environment has also benefited – with a decrease in excess of 95% in plastic bag litter. All levies are remitted into the Environment Fund. Litter Arising from Plastic BagsPrior to the Levy 5%December 2002 0.32%August 2003 0.25%August 2004 0.22%August 2005 0.22% Biodegradable Bags The levy on plastic shopping bags has a strong anti-litter emphasis. The Regulations do not, therefore, distinguish between biodegradable plastic bags and other plastic bags. Biodegradable bags still take a considerable time to degrade and, while their use may be preferable in a final treatment situation, such bags will continue to form a visible nuisance for a significant period of time where discarded as litter. Alternatives to Disposable Plastic Shopping Bags Alternatives to disposable plastic shopping bags, such as reusable boxes, and reusable bags are now available in many shops. The consumer has, by and large, changed to using these alternatives. In the grocery sector disposable plastic bags have largely been replaced by reusable “long life” shopping bags. Plastic shopping bags designed for re-use are exempt from the levy provided that the retailer charges at least 70 cent for the bag.

SI 167 of 2007 Waste Management (Environmental Levy) (Plastic Bag) Amendment (No 2) Regulations 2007 (pdf, 82 kb)

CHINA BANS PLASTIC BAGS. The Chinese government has imposed a ban on thin plastic bags such as the ones shown in these photos being used by street and food vendors in Shanghai.

SHANGHAIThin plastic bags are used for everything in China and the Chinese use up to three billion of them a day--an environmentally costly habit picked up by shopkeepers and consumers in the late 1980s for convenience over traditional cloth bags. Fruit mongers weigh produce in them, tailors stuff shirts into them, even street food vendors plunk their piping hot wares directly into see-through plastic bags that do nothing to protect one's hands from being burned or coated in hot grease. They even have a special name for the plastic bags found blowing, hanging and floating everywhere from trees to rivers.

Or white pollution, for the bags' most common color. Yet, the Chinese government is set to ban the manufacture and force shopkeepers to charge for the distribution of bags thinner than 0.025 millimeters thick as of June 1and no one seems prepared. I don't know what we'll do, Zhang Gui Lin, a tailor at Shanghai's famous fabric market, tells me through a translator. I guess our shopping complex will figure it out and tell us what to buy to use as bags. His wife adds. Maybe it will be like this, tugging a thicker mesh orange plastic bag she is using to carry some shoes. Such thicker bags may prove one replacement for the ubiquitous thinner versions. The clothes makers are not alone. I don't know actually, says a vendor of Chinese tamales, known as

Directly.] The Chinese government is banning production and distribution of the thinnest plastic bags in a bid to curb the white pollution that is taking over the countryside. The bags are also banned from all forms of public transportation and scenic locations. The move may save as much as 37 million barrels of oil currently used to produce the plastic totes, according to

Already, the nation's largest producer of such thin plastic bags, Huaqiang, has shut down its operations. The effort comes amid growing environmental awareness among the Chinese people and mimics similar efforts in countries like Bangladesh and Ireland as well as the city of San Francisco, though efforts to replicate that ban in other U. S. municipalities have foundered in the face of opposition from plastic manufacturers. More than one million reusable cloth bags have already been sold on various Chinese merchandising Web sites, according to

And local environmental groups, such as Shanghai Roots Shoots, are promoting and giving away cloth bags in schools. Too many plastic bags is a great waste of natural resources, retired Communist Party cadre Liu Zhidong says through a translator. When burnt, they produce poisoning smoke, and if buried underneath the ground they need more than 300 years to be degraded. But it remains to be seen how strong enforcement will be. Specific penalties have not been set but will include fines. Other environmental effortssuch as a similar ban on disposable wooden chopsticks (a waster of trees) and so-called green GDP, or gross domestic product, an effort to account for environmental costs when calculating overall economic development fell by the wayside because they proved too difficult to implement and created significant opposition at the local level. It also remains to be seen whether some of the possible replacementsthicker or biodegradable plastic bagswill be any better. This is a very good measure to protect the environment. However, whether it can last long is still very doubting, chemistry graduate student Oliver says. And another problem is [that] the so-called biodegradable plastic bags, it seems, cannot be totally degraded. Whether or not they are really good for environment protection in the long run remains unknown.

A shopper carries plastic grocery bags along with a reusable one at the Loblaws store at Lake Shore Blvd. and Leslie St.

Bans on plastic bags and bottles are now proliferating. But that bad-boy image overlooks some big environmental advantages

The provincial government wants Ontarians to cut in half the number of plastic shopping bags they use over the next five years. Today, Environment Minister Laurel Broten will announce a partnership with the Recycling Council of Ontario and grocer and retail associations to come up with a system of consumer incentives to meet the target, the

Has learned. Each of us can help clean up our environment by doing little things like reducing the number of plastic bags we use, a provincial source said. The program will be voluntary but if the carrot approach doesn't work, the province has the ability to drag out the stick in the form of mandatory per bag charges or outright bans. The recycling council will work with all retail businesses – from large grocery chains to small corner stores – to provide incentives such as store points that can be redeemed for products, air miles or cash to customers who use reusable cloth or canvas bags. Other elements of the program, to be rolled out in coming months, will include training for store clerks to double bag less often, put more items in each bag and stop bagging large or single items. It may also include more per bag fees. We're working with industry to give families the tools they need to cut their use of bags in half by 2012, the source said. Right now, Ontarians use 7 million plastic bags each day – that's about 4 bags per person every week. There will be annual reports measuring the success, and if the voluntary system isn't working, the province can regulate tougher measures such as bag fees or bans. While we're keen to be partnering with industry, we will take further action if we're not seeing the kind of results that we want to see, the source said. Many grocery stores – seeking to capitalize on increased consumer interest in the environment – have already started to try to make a dent in those numbers by offering cloth or canvas bags or reusable bins and providing goodies to customers who use them. AP and Dominion, for example, sell a 99-cent reusable shopping bag that holds the equivalent of about three plastic bags of groceries, and give 5 air miles to customers with reusable bags. With all grocers and other stores on board, through their associations, competition will set in and incentives are likely to rise. The incentive program flows from a pilot project in Sault Ste. Marie, which is trying to find out what it takes to get people to remember to bring their reusable bags back to the store. What are consumers looking for? What will make them remember to open the trunk and bring the reusable bin or the reusable bag. `Gee, if I'm going to get $5 off my groceries I'll do it,' or air miles or whatever the incentive is – what is enough to (encourage) them to take it back? Jo-Anne St. Godard, executive director of the Recycling Council of Ontario, said of the pilot project. The council is a non-profit organization dedicated to eliminating waste. Ontario is in the midst of a waste-disposal crisis. Municipalities and businesses send some 4 million tonnes of garbage, much of it from the GTA, to Michigan each year. But it's not a landfill shortage that drives people to want to reduce plastic bags, St. Godard said. The biggest issue from a public standpoint is the problem plastic bags cause with litter. People see them in their communities, they see them on the way to work, they see them at the park, she said. Ontarians have embraced recycling through their blue and grey curbside boxes and in many municipalities, green bin organics, too. Now it's a matter of having people think of using reusable bags as an extension of their recycling efforts, St. Godard said. It's one of those ways we can do something about the environment and it's not that big of a decision, she said. Ontario is one of many jurisdictions around the world trying to curb the growing number of plastic bags, which are made from petroleum products and take hundreds of years to break down. Ireland led the way in 2002 by charging about 22 cents per grocery bag and putting the millions raised into recycling programs. In March, San Francisco became the first city in North America to ban plastic bags in grocery stores and large pharmacies. Retailers were given six months to a year to come up with alternatives such as cloth, paper or biodegradable bags. In April, Leaf Rapids, a small town in northern Manitoba, became the first municipality in Canada to ban plastic shopping bags. There is some debate about whether bans and high bag fees reduce the use of plastic overall or just drive people to buy more garbage bags, made of even thicker plastic, to use for kitchen waste or to pick up after their dog. While plastic bags are often used several times before they are discarded, in the end, few of them get recycled. Overall, Ontario residents and businesses combined recycled only 25 per cent of their trash last year. That's far behind the 2003 Liberal election promise to divert 60 per cent of waste from landfills by 2008 through the three Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle) and composting. The environment minister now says the province will be focusing on the first R – reduce. Like every single Ontarian, I want to see us reduce our environmental footprint, the legacy that we're leaving as a generation of heavy consumers, and we're going to tackle that issue, Broten said in a recent interview.

Paper or plastic? Not anymore in San Francisco. The city's Board of Supervisors approved groundbreaking legislation Tuesday to outlaw plastic checkout bags at large supermarkets in about six months and large chain pharmacies in about a year.

The ordinance, sponsored by Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, is the first such law in any city in the United States and has been drawing global scrutiny this week. "I am astounded and surprised by the worldwide attention," Mirkarimi said. "Hopefully, other cities and other states will follow suit." Fifty years ago, plastic bags -- starting first with the sandwich bag -- were seen in the United States as a more sanitary and environmentally friendly alternative to the deforesting paper bag. Now an estimated 180 million plastic bags are distributed to shoppers each year in San Francisco. Made of filmy plastic, they are hard to recycle and easily blow into trees and waterways, where they are blamed for killing marine life. They also occupy much-needed landfill space. Two years ago, San Francisco officials considered imposing a 17-cent tax on petroleum-based plastic bags before reaching a deal with the California Grocers Association. The agreement called for large supermarkets to reduce by 10 million the number of bags given to shoppers in 2006. The grocers association said it cut back by 7.6 million, but city officials called that figure unreliable and unverifiable because of poor data supplied by markets. The dispute led to a renewed interest in outlawing the standard plastic bag, which Mirkarimi said Tuesday was a "relic of the past." Under the legislation, which passed 10-1 in the first of two votes, large markets and pharmacies will have the option of using compostable bags made of corn starch or bags made of recyclable paper. San Francisco will join a number of countries, such as Ireland, that already have outlawed plastic bags or have levied a tax on them. Final passage of the legislation is expected at the board's next scheduled meeting, and the mayor is expected to sign it. The grocers association has warned that the new law will lead to higher prices for San Francisco shoppers. "We're disappointed that the Board of Supervisors is going down this path," said Kristin Power, the association's vice president for government relations. "It will frustrate recycling efforts and will increase both consumer and retailer costs. There's also a real concern about the availability and quality of compostable bags." Power said most of the group's members operating in San Francisco are likely to switch to paper bags "simply because of the affordability and availability issues." Mirkarimi's legislation is one in a string of environmentally sensitive measures -- such as outlawing Styrofoam food containers and encouraging clean-fuel construction vehicles at city job sites -- adopted by the city in recent months. "It's really exciting," Jared Blumenfeld, director of the city's Department of the Environment, said after the vote on Tuesday. "We're thrilled. It's been a long time in the making." Blumenfeld said it takes 430,000 gallons of oil to manufacture 100 million bags. Compostable bags can be recycled in the city's green garbage bins and will make it more convenient for residents to recycle food scraps, he said. Recycling of paper bags also is far more active today than it was when the plastic bag was first introduced to U. S. consumers. The lone dissenting voice in the board chamber on Tuesday was Supervisor Ed Jew, who noted that 95,000 small businesses in San Francisco will continue to use plastic bags. Jew, who in his third month in office has taken to critiquing his colleagues for being too quick to burden residents and businesses with new mandates, complained that Mirkarimi's legislation has taken too much of the board's time. "We need to move on to address the larger issues in San Francisco," Jew said shortly before he voted against the ordinance. Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier, who introduced amendments this month that will subject pharmacy chains to the legislation, said many large businesses in San Francisco already participate in recycling programs. "The target of this legislation is the bags themselves and improving the environment," she said.

Plastic bags by the numbers 180 million Roughly the number of plastic shopping bags distributed in San Francisco each year. 2 to 3 cents Amount each bag costs markets, compared with anywhere from 5 to 10 cents for a biodegradable bag. 4 trillion to 5 trillion Number of nondegradable plastic bags used worldwide annually. 430,000 gallons Amount of oil needed to produce 100 million nondegradable plastic bags. Source. S. F. Department of the Environment. Worldwatch Institute E-mail Charlie Goodyear at us . This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San .Francisco .Chronicle

S. F. FIRST CITY TO BAN PLASTIC SHOPPING BAGS / Supermarkets and chain pharmacies will have to use recyclable or compostable sacks

Paper or plastic? Not anymore in San Francisco. The city's Board of Supervisors approved groundbreaking legislation Tuesday to outlaw plastic checkout bags at large supermarkets in about six months and large chain.

Paper or plastic bags. which is better? It's an age old question, when it comes time to check out when grocery shopping. paper bag or plastic bag? It seems like it should be an easy choice, but there's an incredible number of details and inputs hidden in each bag. From durability and reusability to life cycle costs, there's a lot more to each bag than meet the eye. Let's take a look behind the bags. Where do brown paper bags come from? Paper comes from trees -- lots and lots of trees. The logging industry, influenced by companies like Weyerhaeuser and Kimberly-Clark, is huge, and the process to get that paper bag to the grocery store is long, sordid and exacts a heavy toll on the planet. First, the trees are found, marked and felled in a process that all too often involves clear-cutting, resulting in massive habitat destruction and long-term ecological damage.

I wish Whole Foods (and other stores) had gone one step further and simply banned both paper and plastic. So now I see a bunch of people leaving WF with tons of paper bags.

The main WholeFoods in Austin is "experimenting" with no bags at the checkout. You have to bring your own or buy their reusable bags. I've been using long-handled canvas totes for groceries for 5 years, since moving into an apartment with on-street parking. I can sling many canvas bags full of groceries onto my arms/shoulders and carry them all in one trip. (I'm pretty strong.) Much better than locking up the car, bringing in a load, heading back out, loading up again, etc. But it's the strength of canvas bags that is tops. I would flinch whenever I'd see the grocery store bagger put only 2 or 3 items in each plastic bag because they would rip otherwise.

I read in a SMH article that plastic bags are not so evil- bags are made from a byproduct of processing natural gas which would otherwise go to waste. they prevent all the other bits of rubbish from going everywhere and act as a stabiliser for the ground when put in landfil. Treehugger thoughts? ( )

I've started taking a couple of those lightweight Glad plastic containers(for fast food or doggie bags or donuts from the grocery store), a big cup (again for fast food or 7-11), a few strong bags (for groceries) and a few small bags (for fruit and veggies) and a small facecloth to dry my hands in the washroom. It's not difficult to do.

I think banning plastic / paper bag use at stores is not the answer. Now if municipalities, states, or countries imposed a hefty (no pun intended) tax for each paper or plastic bag used, that might be incentive enough for consumers to switch to reusable bags. Call it a garbage impact fee. Retailers and grocers are taxed for each plastic or paper bag they hand out, and they in turn charge their customers for each bag they use.

While I totally agree that the best option is to take a proper reusable bag shopping (or not use a bag if you only have a couple of items and don't really need one). I just took a look at the paper bags I have here in the kitchen (which I keep for holding composting materials), and both the Safeway and Lucky ones claim to be 35%-40% made of post consumer recycled material. How does that change those numbers above which seem to assume paper bags made entirely from new paper? Also, there are implications beyond the energy cost that need to be included in the equation too. I suspect that paper bags are more likely to be recycled than plastic ones (especially since few cities allow plastic bags to be dropped in the blue cart). The post consumer impact of a plastic bag thrown in the landfill, or left to find its way into the ocean, is much higher than a paper bag.

I've always wondered about this and could never decide what was better. Six months ago I came to Holland, and you have to buy your plastic bags here. So you're more likely to re-use your bags over and over. Which I think is the best way to go! Plus if you're on a bike, a canvas bag is much easier to hold onto!

Odessa, Texas is the place where all the old plastic bags blow to die. Everywhere you look while driving through. bags stuck to fences and tumbleweeds. It's very disturbing. I think they also collect around the oil rigs that are everywhere, too. Its very sad I think.

City of Seattle is trying to jump on the band wagon with their own twist - adding a 20 cent fee for use of each paper or plastic bags at checkout (grocery, drug store and such to start). I attended the City Council meeting last night (timely article). It was packed - mostly by supporters. The biggest concern is the impact on lower income shoppers. The City said they'll provide a reusable bag to every household and several to those with lower income levels. The few grocery/retail representatives there that I heard seemed more concerned about the administration of a "per bag" fee and asked that it be a "per transaction" fee. Interesting. I would think that okay, if the transaction fee covered the average bag use of probably 3-4 bags (including one of them being double bagged of course). One of folks I attended the meeting with estimated that her family was using over 1000 bags a year from grocery and drug stores before purchasing her 5 reusable bags. I'm really excited about this ban. I'd think the conversion rate from non-reusable bag shoppers to using reusable bags will be huge - maybe 80% within a year of implementation. And for those who are morally or otherwise against the fee. they can drive to the next city over and spend more on gas than they would the transaction fee.

Hi, It's not as far-reaching as decided in China as mentioned in this blog, but you can't get any plastic bags in the major supermarkets in Belgium. You can buy reusable bags or pliable boxes instead. Eddu

Bags.. Who would of thought that this would still be an issue? My husband I an realized the simplicity yet complexity of the problem last year and started educating schools and towns in NJ on reusable bags, recycling of plastic bags, and recovery programs. More and more we are seeing people use reusable bags in our area and we hope this habit becomes more main stream. Props for treehugger for not letting this issue fall of the table. www. goriseup. com We are more than a bag company!

Here's what I do. I get my groceries in plastic bags, but re-use them as trash bags. Saves money and on balance, I suspect it's the lesser evil from an environmental perspective too. it takes away the impact of manufacture and disposal of a) special-purpose trash bags I'd have to use otherwise, b) their packaging and c) the alternative canvas bags, which let's not forget, also have to be made and disposed of with some regularity as well.

Is it common to recycle plastic bags? Does every recycling center? I do not believe mine does in Cincinnati. I find it easier to carry paper bags onto the bus, or walk home with from the grocery store. And I have resused them before, but if my recycling center takes bags then i may switch. I like to take my canvas bag but when i am on the run i don't have one on me unless i plan ahead of time so I usually choose paper because I know that i can recycle that in my home.

OK. silly article. I like the facts behind it and most items are interesting things to know. However, the article doesn't answer the question. If you ask which is better, plastic or paper, there are 2 options. Granted, it is best to take a bag that doesn't get thrown away. However, that wasn't the question. Are plastic or paper bags more environmentally clean when the entire equation is looked at? The above still isn't conclusive. A situation should be presented to clarify the question such as, ". you forget your re-usable bag at your girlfriend's house on the way to the grocery. You don't notice until you are checking out. Should you use a plastic to carry your condoms home or use paper?".

The bag issue is only small change. If you want to make are real difference, you should concentrate on the packaging of the products - this is where the real impact on resources and landfills can be made. Plastic bags have a much smaller contribution to these problems then packaging does, but it's a lot easier to deal with.

Emily, if you are reusing your plastic bags to clean up after your dogs, aren't you basically recycling them? Win-win if you ask me. I know it's not the same, but at least the bag IS getting used twice before ending up in a landfill.

If they added a sizable tax, all of which could go towards carbon offsets, the habits of people would change quickly. We could get past this question because if everyone was charged a $1 per bag, paper or plastic, then they would start to keep bags on them the same way they keep their phone, or keys, or make up. I've been carrying items home from stores for years now, people still give me a bad look. I also have some roll up micro-thin bags that can be easily tucked away in my car or girlfriend's purse.

I'm surprised how so many people don't know about new technologies that can really help with the plastic problem of the world. There's this new additive from EPI ( where you can simply add into the plastic mixture during production of conventional plastic products (bags, bottles, trays, packaging) that will make it biodegradable. With the additive, the plastic will biodegrade 60% in 1.5-2 years in the landfill. The biodegrading process is triggered by heat, mechanical stress, moisture, light, bacteria. The additive only adds a few percent to the total production cost. This technology can really be applied to so many things and will change the world on how plastic is used and perceived. This technology is already being used all around the world.

I just got back from living in Europe for a year, and am now accustomed to bringing my own bags to the grocery store. Almost all stores in northern Europe charge a small fee for each grocery bag used at the store (banning them outright is a bit absurd and unlikely to fly in our economy), roughly 50 euro cents. The bags are more durable and people hold onto them for reuse. While Trader Joe's offers a rebate for bringing in your own bags, that strategy is less effective in the same way that organ donors are less frequent in the US versus Sweden. What do I mean? It's the opt-in versus opt-out concept. Swedes are automatically enrolled in the organ donor program unless they tick the box saying they do not wish to participate. In the US, however, Americans must opt-in (see The Paradox of Choice for more on the psychology of that). It's the same thing here. You gotta be on the more persuasive end where money talks. in this case, forcing people to pay a very slight fee instead of rewarding them with something negligible. It'll force better habits instead of encouraging the status quo. Trader Joe's and WF can start doing this, as their customers already have the right mindset, in addition to the stores having very specialized products that are often harder (or in TJ's case, impossible) to find elsewhere. The proceeds can then go to environmental causes, etc. and they can also save on plastic bag costs themselves. Furthermore, canvas bags aren't the only answer. While those are great for heavy lifting, there are also compact nylon styles (example here) that fold up into a small packet (slightly smaller than a fist) that you can throw into your workbag/purse or store in your car. I always have one of these on hand in my bag just in case I decide to go to a store on the fly. For heavy duty grocery trips, I bring along the big canvas bags as well. Additionally, recycling seems to have the same effect on consumption that sunblock has on sun overexposure. it lulls the user into thinking he/she is okay in doing what is known to be bad. Just like sunblock is not so effective at stopping skin cancer (as recently disclosed in the news), recycling doesn't wipe the slate clean for garbage production. I have a friend whose household used plastic cups and plates for every meal and threw out 2 big bags of trash a day, just because they didn't want to wash dishes and thought recycling took care of it all. But thankfully, unlike them, most people just need a slight nudge towards conservation.

Actually, plastic bags will degrade, but really slowly. Thats becouse polimer chains are very long, and microrganisms can "eat" them only from both ends. When polymers contains starch, degradation of starch cause breaking of chains, and in this way bacteries can start degradation process from multiples end, what will lead to faster decomposition. Completly biodegradable polymers, like mentioned PHA or PLA are as good as the standart ones, but, they are approx. 10x more expensive.. ( sorry for my english).>

Great post. We have been using canvas bags for years now. Once you condition yourself to pack the bags when you shop, forgetting them just doesn't seem to happen anymore. We do all our shopping at a local farmers market and pretty much everyone uses canvas bags. One thing I've noticed though is that people are still using those clear small plastic bags to put their vegetables in so some alternatives might be needed to combat this.

I live in Venice, Italy and our local supermarket has a corn based plastic bag called Mater-Bi. It degrades and can be thrown in the compost.

Here's some information I came across this morning about recycling costs for those thin supermarket plastic bags. Basically, according to this information, the cost of recycling the material is much higher than the cost of a new bag. The result is that most of them are entering landfills, or worse being blown by the wind and interfering with wildlife. Bottom line I think is use reusable bags, but if you do forget them, or don't have enough, choosing paper over plastic still seems like the wiser choice overall, even if it is worse in terms of production footprint.

I think that most people want to do the right thing to protect the environment, and when they learn how harmful using both paper and plastic is, they are more likely to REUSE cloth bags. With regard to the person who uses the plastic bags to pick up dog poop - that will MUMMIFY the dog's droppings - there are biodegradable bags that will allow the poop to biodegrade - like it's meant to do. Some suggestions. It takes 28 days to establish a new habit. So, if you forget your bags, put your groceries or other items back into your cart, and roll it out to your car. Keep a cardboard box, or hopefully, you have your bags there. The aggravation may encourage you to remember to bring the bags the next time! Remember, don't take plastic bags ANYWHERE - the pharmacy, the hardware store, etc. I also like the idea of a green tax on the plastic or other bags - when a new product comes out that doesn't hurt the environment, then the tax goes away! That tax can go towards cleaning up the environment. One of the products that I have on my website teaches children. Kids Kit To Save The World From Plastic Bags - and then THEY will remind you to take the bags that they make for you! (www. SustainableBags. NET) But change must come from us all individually.Be the change you want to see. Remember, people run companies as well - and we must continue to press business owners by calling and writing to tell them that we want them to use less packaging as well! If you buy organic food, do you really want it in a plastic package that leaches chemicals into the food? Here you are spending more money for a quality product, and degrading it with it's packaging! Also, look for all the other plastic you use in your life. disposable toothbrushes, razors, etc. Try and find the kinds where you only replace a small piece, rather than the entire item. You can get more ideas and share yours at my blog.

Over the past year I have switched from using plastic garbage bags to simply putting my trash in my leftover paper bags from Whole foods. This has not only saved me money but has also allowed me to lower my carbon footprint. Also, the paper bags are nice because they fit in my trash can and also have easy handles for taking the trash out to my apartment's big bin. I also believe that my local trash authority has a program for weeding out recyclables from the main trash supply so hopefully the bag never ends up in the landfill at all.

Interesting article and posts. Some serious misinformation in both. A reader (and the writer) mention biodegradable plastic and additives that render plastic biodegradable. There has been much debate among the scientific community about this and the State of California is very close to banning the substance. Nobody knows what really happens to the plastic once it is 'eaten up' by the microbes, and some of the claims about rapid biodegradation are false. CA has strict requirements on what can be called 'biodegradable'- time is the critical factor. There are lot's of folks out there interchanging the terms compostable and biodegradable. Be careful when evaluating and jumping to conclusions about these materials- none are the holy grail we're all looking for. Did you know there are over 8,000 patents pending for Bioplastics at the moment?! Big money in this, but nobody has found the Holy Grail yet. At my company we're looking to answer the other important questions- sustainability and carbon footprint- i. e. 'beggining of life/source of material', and 'mid-life', or 'what happens when this stuff is being produced?' As such we have found FiberStone™ paper from Natural Source Printing (.com) to be one of the most remarkable materials available as an alternative to BOTH paper and plastic. At Holiday time you'll be seeing lot's of big name retailers using FiberStone™ gift bags, wrap, labels and banners. You'll see unit carton boxes out of it as well. Do your homework folks. People are so focused on 'recyclability' and 'landfill'- where there are few answers, and should start looking at carbon footprint and natural resource depletion.

That was a whole lot of posts to wade thru! lots of good ideas now for mine --- 1. get paper bags with handles if you can find them double or even better triple them up so they will be strong! I have some that I have been using now for 7 years - if the handles come off or become loose just staple them back on -- keep them in your car, in your house at work etc. 2. "Anything Into Oil" landfills should be outlawed & all garbage should either be recycled (metals) or turned into oil by the high temperature high pressure de-polymerization process all sewage solids should also be made into oil - hello!! oil at $130.00 a barrel or more 3. no more separating plastics - they all get recycled by being turned back into oil from whence they came

The fact that a plastic bag needs more then 100 years to break down always brings me to use paper bag.

What gets me is that we all debating the paper v's plastic topic and saying that re-usable bags are the way to go. Which is strange seeing as the majority of re-usable bags (particularly the ones found in supermarkets) are made from polypropylene (aka plastic). So when our re-usable bags break or wear out we are still faced with the same issue of the bag not breaking down and it will take up so much more space in land fill than standard plastic bags.

In your description of paper recycling, you failed to mention that the pulp fibers break down into smaller fibers during the recycling process. The paper industry, more often than not, use soft wood trees to make their paper because the fibers are longer, and make a stronger paper in the end. By recycling paper, you end up with broken fibers, which equate to a weaker paper. Also, (in the US) most paper companies use tree farms, and do not destroy existing ecosystems by that very reason. Yes, at one point the land was converted into a tree farm, but then it becomes no different than any other farm land used for any other crop. There are many benefits to their using tree farms, the greatest of which are ease of acquiring virgin pulp, and knowing the conditions the trees are grown in. You also fail to mention that every paper bag that ends up in the waste stream, and ends up in a sanitary landfill, does NOT biodegrade, and therefore, takes up more space than a plastic bag following the same route. Sanitary landfills are designed to prevent bio degradation, because once capped, it would only cause instability, off-gassing, and eventual collapse of the landfill cap. I've learned all of this from my years in college, and as a packaging engineer, so I'm sorry I have no specific references to back this up. In the interest of transparency, my packaging career almost entirely depends on paper, as I am a corrugated and paperboard packaging designer, so for me to be pointing out the downfalls of paper bag usage does not benefit me. Please research these points as you see fit, and include whatever you glean from this comment in your article. The more information people have, the more informed decisions can be made.

For those of you who use a reusable canvas style bag, what do you use for your kitchen trash bags? Do you buy bio-plastic bags? Or.? I have a small kitchen trash can, which the paper bags from the market just fit into. I compost, to keep volume down. But am trying to figure out the best alternative if I go canvas. Ultimately, I don't think it's a good idea to hand carry trash to the large 30 gallon trash can, as that would then need to be washed out every so often, wasting water. Any suggestions?

Once people start using totes, they don't want to go back. I LOVE them! It makes carrying your groceries so much easier. I've even bought smaller zipper versions from Target so I can keep them in my purse. My local grocery stores now keep their tote stock at the end of the grocery line. That way if you forget your own, you can buy one for 99 cents. The only disadvantage to not using plastic bags, I 'm starting to run low on my dog's "poop" bags..)

Wow,,i should have thought of that before..but i suggest that every countrys government should have the effort to collect scattered plastic bags and recycle them.

You reached the conclusion that "canvas" bags are better without discussing how they are manufactured. What are they made of, and did you notice they are made in China--that's a lot of bag-miles. Also, paper and plastic bags can be reused too. How many times does the study assume that the paper and plastic bags are reused? Canvas bags are obviously orders of magnitude more to produce per unit since you have to buy them for $1.99 whereas paper and plastic are given out free.

There are a lot of stores in chicago that are either giving a discount for bringing your own bag or starting to charge for needing paper or plastic. either way, with everyone jumping on the bandwagon, i feel guilty when i DON'T bring my own bags. i got a goody green bag for my bday and i love it. it's the first one i've seen that is actually cute and i find myself using it as a purse sometimes. goodygreenbag. com.i want to buy myself a few more in different patterns!

In 2001 there was 1,678,900 tonnes of plastic packaging in the waste stream, an increase from 1,600,000 in 2000. Research conducted in September 2000 indicated that UK consumers used eight billion plastic carrier bags per year. The Government is taking action to support the reduction of plastic packaging in the waste stream, re-use of bags and recycling of plastics more generally. See Frequently Asked Questions below for more details. Waste Watch provide a useful information sheet on plastics available at. www. wasteonline. org. uk/resources/InformationSheets/Plastics. htm

The Government fully supports the 'bag for life' and 'penny back' schemes that have been introduced by some of the large supermarket chains. Constructive dialogue has taken place with some of the chains in order to be fully aware of the retailer issues and to be supportive of schemes that help to increase the re-use and recycling of plastic bags.

There are no current plans for a plastic bag tax, but the Government keeps all taxation under review. All taxation measures are a matter for the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

There is work taking place to try and tackle all of these issues, either on a commercial basis or with Government support. So there are a number of trials being undertaken on different collection systems (e. g. an initial combined collection involving plastic and other, heavier material such as glass and later separation) and various approaches to crushing plastic bottles that seek to overcome transport issues. WRAP was set up by Government to tackle the market barriers to increased recycling. One of WRAP's priorities is marketing existing recycled plastic products and removing discriminatory standards. This is linked to the development of buy recycled policies and a research and development programme to develop plastics recycling technology and support composite product development. WRAP are also working on how best to address the lack of plastics sorting/processing in the UK and are supporting the development of processing plant, which should result in an additional 20,000 tonnes of plastic bottles being diverted from the waste stream every year. You can find out more about what WRAP is doing by visiting their website at www. wrap. org. uk.

Q7. What is the Government's position with regard to the introduction of biodegradable plastic bags?

Prime example of environmental failure. Yet, in a bolt from the blue, it looks like the red has embraced green. Yesterday, Chinas State Council put a nationwide ban on plastic bags. The cabinet has demanded all stores (from major supermarkets to small shops) go plastic bag-free after June 1. According to the

China uses more plastic bags than any other country. China squanders 37 million barrels of crude oil on plastic bag production every year. The nationwide ban will no doubt help correct Chinas tarnished image, especially before the Beijing Olympic Games. With nations from Ireland to Uganda and now China topping the bag-ban list, lets hope the United States will make moves to follow the trend.

Plastic takes thousands of years to decompose -- but 16-year-old science fair contestant Daniel Burd made it happen in just three months. The Waterloo, Ontario high school junior figured that something must make plastic degrade, even if it does take millennia, and that something was probably bacteria. (Hey, at between one-half and 90 percent of Earth's biomass, bacteria's a pretty safe bet for any biological mystery.)

Burd says this should be easy on an industrial scale. all that's needed is a fermenter, a growth medium and plastic, and the bacteria themselves provide most of the energy by producing heat as they eat. The only waste is water and a bit of carbon dioxide. Amazing stuff. I'll try to get an interview with this young man who may have managed to solve one of the most intractable environmental dilemmas of our time. And I can't help but wonder whether his high school already had its prom. If he doesn't get to be king, there's no justice in this world.

Very cool concept, which I hope will turn into a viable recycling method one day. We just have to make sure that these strains never become too hardy, or we may end up giving up plastic bags.

I too hope this turns into a recognised recycling method, im sure also this can do more than plastic bags, probably other hard to do plastics such as many plastics that do not identify their type

Bit of carbon dioxide." Lets see, most plastics are made from oil. Burying the plastic under ground would sequester the carbon for "millennia", now we can expedite that and increase global warming! Great job Daniel Burd!

For all the detractors. Read the original article at. Yes, he ground up the plastic originally to make it easier for the bacteria to feed on. The yeast provided a medium with lots of nutrients so the bacteria wanted for nothing, and the bacteria came from the dirt. Read the article, he did use strips of plastic and whole bags eventually, and the results sound pretty impressive. And Wired, do more justice to the source article or make the link more apparent, based on what you posted, people are right to criticize, but if they read the original article, most of the criticisms are unfounded.

“one of the most intractable environmental dilemmas of our time” How is breaking down plastic one of the most intractable environmental dilemmas of our time? As much as environmentalists like to complain about landfills, there’s plenty of space for them all over the world. I think that global warming, air pollution, and water pollution are all a hell of a lot more important and harder to solve problems than what to do with plastic bags—for which recycling programs are already in place anyway! If you want to know why so many people still don’t take environmental issues seriously, garbage journalism like this piece probably has something to do with it!

I figured we would have to genetically engineer a plastic eating bacteria I didn't even consider that they might exist naturally.

Think about what these microbes have already done for us. Consider all that rubber that fell off your tires recently. It should have been in great mounds along our Highways, but it isn't. Some little microbe and its pals have been chewing away on that stuff for a few years. Also, some other plastics are probably being broken down in that sprawling pacific gyre of plastic stuff. Maybe, some one should be lookin' there for a way to break down more than LDPE, or whatever those bags are made of, and move up the recycle scale a bit? Cheers!

Bioplast is a manufacturing company of BIOPLAST Branded Biodegradable Garbage Bags and Fridge Bags for the household markets and for the industry as well as Biodegradable Carrier Bags and Vegy Bags for the retail sector using their own patented unique formula of bacteria enzyme base substrate as against starch base as used by other manufacturers world over which is not as strong or durable as polymer (plastic) bags and has a cost addition of 300%-400%. Also starch based products can comprise of genetically modified crops (GM Crops) which contains PLA the substitutes can increase emissions of greenhouse gases on landfill sites and releases Methane which is 23 times more damaging than the C02 that Al and Goreites have demonized and cannot be recycled in Britain. See The Guardian reported on Saturday on “Corn starch based material can damage the environment”. Bioplast is the only Biodegradable technology in the world using bacteria enzyme base substrate which is 100% biodegradable within 6 months after disposal as per ASTM-D us. and EN 13432.2000/ISO 14855 standards with the lowest cost addition of 15%-20%. See Also. Bioplast biodegradable products are also compostable and hence enhancing the nutritive value of the remaining soil. All the ingredients of Bioplast biodegradable plastic products are food grade and non-toxic in nature therefore suitable to be in contact with food products. Bioplast believes that this great innovation will go a long way in preserving the ecological balance around the world which has brought intelligent and affordable solution to the disposal of polyethylene plastic waste problem worldwide. Now the local and central Governments must ban all non-biodegradable plastic bags and force all the retailers to use ONLY 100% Biodegradable bags in their stores as an alternative to reusable canvas bags which will be the evidence of their sincere concern for the environment and their commitment to tackling the considerable problem of plastic bag waste and the pollution. "What will you tell your children? Were you part of the Problem or part of the Solution?"

Lol @ commenters. Plastic in landfills = carbon sequestration! Chopping up plastic bags "exponentially" increases their surface area!

Wow, that it the dumbest idea to hit the headlines in a long time. If you could collect the bags, you could just recycle them into other plastic products. If you do that you save all the carbon that went into producing the plastic in the first place, and preserve a non-renewable resource. The unnoticed impact of running out of oil isn't the loss of an energy resource, but as a raw material for so many other products including plastics. At some point in the near future, our concept of garbage will change. (And we may not even have plastic bags, since plastic will be too valuable to waste.)

First and foremost, this is an interesting project that is more experimental/educational than it is practical. Realistically, removal of plastic bags in a controlled, contained atmosphere is significantly less of an issue than a wholesale assault on the concept of waste (eg production/isolation of technical or biological nutrients in a non-recoverable format). For anybody *genuinely* interested in answers for some of the most 'intractable problems' of our civilization (and the environment upon which it depends), please check out anything involving William McDonough, Michael Braungart, or Amory Lovins. I suspect the discovery, if it is indeed to have any practical application in the time until zero-waste alternatives are developed to our current disposable bag paradigm, will be of greatest benefit to waste management companies seeking ways to intermediately sequester/degrade wastes in landfills. As an example, there exists in landfills a lot of organic material that could be sequestered and anaerobically digested to power fuel cells, but plastics and other materials will largely cause contamination, which a system utilizing the above bacteria might help eliminate. Within closed-loop industrial processes, petroplastics and their byproducts might be broken down and the carbon dioxide diverted to other causes (power generation, algae feedstock, etc). For the naysayers who keep talking about plastic bags being recyclable. you are simply mistaken. At this point in time, very few materials are genuinely recyclable. Polyethylene (the primary plastic of such bags) is generally downcycled through its lifecycle and becomes little more than plastic composite lumber (ie TREX). Terming such a transition of materials 'recycling' is a lie that continues only slightly less our paradigm of waste than does landfilling the plastic. Keep sciencing.

I read the original article. To the people who say that he's not going in the right direction and that his idea is stupid, at least he has one that's reasonable. What have you done, gawk at the problem and tell other people to solve the problem without providing any help whatsoever? Besides that, it's a great job he's doing. With a little improvement, this could be a real method used in the future. @Bioplast. quote "Now the local and central Governments must ban all non-biodegradable plastic bags and force all the retailers to use ONLY 100% Biodegradable bags in their stores as an alternative to reusable canvas bags which will be the evidence of their sincere concern for the environment and their commitment to tackling the considerable problem of plastic bag waste and the pollution." You can force them to do that right away, but they'll leave your country instead of doing anything. And before you say, make every country in the world enforce the rule so that these companies will have nowhere to run to, not every country will do that, especially the two North American powers. There'd be too much public outcry. Instead of just using legal force to try to coerce them, give them an incentive as well as a "dis-incentive" to make them not move the other way. And no bag is 100% biodegradable. Basically, you're asking to force them to not use plastic bags at all. While that would be ideal, it's not feasible.

Plastic bags are "bad for the environment", right? Could someone please explain to me via what mechanism they cause harm? Remember that the miracle breakthrough here is that someone found a way to destroy them, so the fact that they are made from petroleum doesn't count. The article said that this is one of "the most intractable environmental dilemmas of our time". Since, under some circumstances I can be thrown in jail for using them, someone must have a clear, obvious, uncontroversial explanation of how plastic bags damage the environment.

It is a nice concept, but some guys at an american corporation (Global Resource Corporation) have developed a technique to just turn plastic back to diesel oil and combustible gas. ( And something about the energy efficency. "producing 18 times more energy than it creates" (do they mean use (

Welcome Los Angeles to the growing list of countries and municipalities that are taking a stand against plastic bags. Following in the footsteps of Australia, China, Israel, Melbourne, San Francisco and others, the City of Los Angeles has jumped on the plastic bag ban bandwagon to stop the persistent environmental hazards from entering the LA waste stream by 2010.

The city council voted to ban plastic bags effective on July 1, 2010. The vote is a timely pressure point for the state to pass an Assembly bill (AB 2058) next month that addresses recycling issues and a fee for plastic bags. The tactics are a step in the right direction, especially considering that LAs locale is prime for direct pollution of plastic into the Pacific Ocean. LA and California seem to be on the right track in terms of at least addressing the huge problem of plastic - LA consumers use some 2.3 billion bags. Only about 5 percent of those plastic bags are recycled, leaving the remainder to swirl in the winds and tides posing a hazard to wildlife and humans. The city is also stepping it up with a ban on Styrofoam at city facilities by 2009. Via EcoLocalizer

Recycling and pollution issues take many different forms. But at least this is a step in the right direction. First, LA bans the plastic bag. then it bans the automobile. (Nah! I must be dreaming)

Every time we start to think that street art is starting to get a bit tired and boring, along - out of nowhere - comes something that reconnects us with why we fell in love with street art in the first place. The story we heard at dinner tonight is that there's an artist who's been making these animals out of discarded plastic bags. He (or she) ties the bags to the ventilation grates above the subway lines so that when the subway rushes through underneath, the animal jumps up and springs to life. (Thanks Trish for sharing the photos with us!) Posted by marc at 10.41 PM in 3D |

Just a TVC I did last year to raise awareness of plastic bags and their damaging properties on the environment.

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Better Containers Hillside, Illinois manufacturers of plastic bags-- extruders, printers and converters of poly bags, liners, sheeting, tubing and envelopes

Bradley's Plastic Bag Company Packaging products from polyethylene materials. Based in Downey, California.

Champion Plastics Provider of polyethylene bags, liners, covers, films, sheeting, tubing and shrink packaging.

Chantler Packaging Extruder, printer and converter of plastic bags, sleeves, sheeting and tubing, serving the produce, floral, bakery and industrial sectors.

Convex Plastics Ltd. Specialises in the design and manufacture of polyethylene flexible ready-made bags and films, promotional materials and labels.

Elkay Plastics Company, Inc. Development, production and just-in-time delivery of industrial and retail poly bags to the industrial packaging products distributor.

Interplast Group Ltd. Manufactures a complete line of plastic bags. The manufacturing facilities are located at Lolita, Texas.

International Plastics Online catalog and ordering of bags, liners, films, boxes, and additional packaging supplies.

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Midland Plastics Ltd. Manufacturer of wide array of industrial goods and supplies. Based in New Delhi.

Nalle Plastics Inc. Specializing in customized plastic netting for numerous applications and markets. Based in Austin, Texas.

Nexus Plastics Inc. Based in New Jersey, manufacturers custom made bags, sheeting and tubing in all types of polyethylene.

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Plastic bags can be a very important tool for your business. Custom printed plastic bags can get your company name out in the marketplace and potentially bring you new business. And other types of personalized plastic bags can offer something to your customer that they are unlikely to forget where it came from. Plastic bags have a variety of uses, making them very versatile and helpful to your overall business plan. Figuring out ways to incorporate wholesale plastic bags into your business can open up new doors and lead to an even more prosperous business. Consider the following when making the most of plastic bags.1. Have specialized plastic bags made for your next professional conference or trade show.2. When potential clients or other businesses visit your workplace, hand out your company information in plastic bags with logos.3. Offer samples or other giveaways in your retail store that are stuffed inside plastic merchandise bags.

Take custom printed plastic bags with you to your next professional event Conferences and trade shows are full of take-home gifts and company information. Make your handouts stand out by offering them in their own personalized plastic bag. That way all of the other giveaways that other businesses pick up will go inside of your company's bag. And when conference-goers go to sift through everything they acquired, they will be less likely to forget about your business because they will be easily reminded of your company just from the bag they took home with them.

Bags OnTheNet. com offers many plastic bag styles you can have customized. Bagbarn. com is a plastic bag distributor where you can purchase wholesale shopping bags. Keep company information packets inside customized plastic bags Rather than just handing potential clients a stack of company information, hand it to them inside of a personalized plastic bag. The plastic bag will not only keep all of the information in a safe place for your potential client but it will be more convenient for them as well. The bag in and of itself will serve as another reminder of your company and what you are offering to them as a client.

Aplasticbag. com has customized plastic bags that will fit any type of information you would like to include. You can also have custom plastic bags made at 4imprint. Give out samples and giveaways inside plastic bags with company logo designs At a retail store your customers shouldn't have to purchase something to leave with an impression from your store. As a new business or maybe during a special promotion, consider handing out samples or other tokens of your appreciation inside of plastic bags to show your thanks to customers that took the time to stop at your store. Clear plastic bags will allow the potential customers to show off what they received just by stopping through.

InkHead Promotional Products offers customized plastic bags in different shapes and sizes. MARCO Promotional Products offers several plastic bag choices.

When choosing the style of plastic bag you want, be sure to know ahead of time what you plan on putting inside. If you are going to put small, easily lost items inside, think about going with a drawstring bag. If you are handing out papers, go for a die-cut handle plastic bag.

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Plastic shopping bags, plastic take-out bags, plastic trash bags -- plastic bags may not generate a lot of excitement on your business agenda, but these often overlooked items are essential to many businesses. For instance, plastic bags are a staple in retail and restaurant operations. For these businesses, personalized plastic bags can play a vital role in an overall marketing plan. With the right plastic shopping bags, you can build your brand and reinforce your company image. And when customers leave your establishment carrying pre-printed plastic bags with your company name and logo, they become a walking billboard for other consumers to see. Plastic bags have dozens of other critical uses in the business arena, including plastic trash bags, plastic storage bags and more. To get the most bang for your buck from plastic bags.1. Choose plastic retail bags in colors and styles that fit the image of your business. 2. Make sure your plastic bags are sturdy enough to hold your products without breaking.3. Use personalized plastic bags with your store name, logo and perhaps your phone number, street address or website address.4. Follow vendor guidelines when providing artwork for personalized plastic bags.

Plastic retail bags Plastic shopping bags come in hundreds of styles - from bargain-basement basic varieties to unique upscale versions. The best plastic retail bags for your business depend largely on your industry - a hardware store has very different needs than an upscale clothing boutique. Also, you need to consider the size and weight of your merchandise when choosing plastic shopping bags.

Find plastic retail bags, such as plastic handle bags, Euro shopper plastic bags, plastic tote bags and preprinted plastic bags in numerous styles at Paper Mart, Uline Shipping Supplies and Action Bag Company. Plastic take-out bags for restaurants Many restaurants depend on a thriving take-out business to meet their financial goals. That means you need an ample supply of plastic take-out bags with handles for to-go orders. Printing plastic take-out bags with your company name, logo and phone number increases awareness about your restaurant.

Find plastic take-out bags at Uline Shipping Supplies and a variety of foodservice bags at BagBarn. com. Pre-printed plastic bags If you want to curb costs, check into pre-printed plastic bags that work for retail or restaurants.

The Nu-Era Group offers pre-printed plastic bags that say 'Thank You'. Promotional plastic bags for trade shows If trade shows play a part in your marketing plan, promotional plastic bags are an ideal giveaway. Imprinting your company name and/or logo on promotional plastic bags turns these simple totes into a walking calling card.

TradeshowExhibitor. com and Affinity Bag Co. offer a wide variety of promotional plastic bags for your trade show needs. Plastic bags for office supplies When it comes to plastic trash bags and plastic storage bags for everyday office use, you can find an adequate variety at major office supply stores.

Visit Office Depot or OfficeMax to order plastic trash bags and plastic storage bags. Industrial plastic bags To store equipment parts and other materials, industrial plastic bags are a popular and affordable choice. Anti-static plastic bags are especially useful for some industries, such as the computer and electronics fields.

Find industrial plastic bags at Uline Shipping Supplies, BagBarn. com or CentralPack. com. Recycled plastic bags Recycled plastic bags don't have to be dull or ugly. In fact, recycled plastic bags come in a variety of colors and styles that look just as good as non-recycled plastic bags. For retailers, going green can improve your image with environmentally conscious consumers.

Visit Earthpack for a variety of recycled plastic bags that can be personalized with your name and logo.

It pays to invest in good quality plastic bags. Consumers are more likely to re-use high-quality plastic bags, which provide you with free advertising.

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Plastic bags are one of those items that you may not have put much thought into for your business. However, personalized plastic bags may play a larger role in your marketing plan than you would have thought. Plastic bags are an inexpensive way to get your company name on the streets and into the homes of consumers everywhere. You can purchase basic plastic bags for as little as a few cents a piece. Custom printed plastic bags will run closer to 10 or 15 cents a piece for plastic T-shirt bags. Larger bags, possibly with rope handles, run more in the 50 cents to $1 range. Consider the following when evaluating the pricing and costs of plastic bags.1. Buying wholesale plastic bags can save you money.2. Plastic bags with logos can be customized for your business.3. Plastic bags come in a variety of styles, sizes and durability.

Buy plastic bags in bulk Many suppliers of plastic bags require that you purchase a minimum number of plastic bags. If you know you are going to need the plastic bags eventually, it pays to buy several cartons at a time. Saving a few dollars per carton can add up if you are buying multiple cartons. The difference between ordering 1,000 and 5,000 plastic bags is approximately $3 per carton of 1,000. That equals a savings of $15 on one order. If you go through plastic merchandise bags quickly, ordering wholesale shopping bags will be helpful to your bottom line.

Uline is a plastic bag distributor where you can buy plastic bags in bulk. Paper Mart, too, sells plastic retail bags in large quantities. Have plastic bags customized for your business One of the keys to having plastic bags work for you is to plaster your company name on the outside. Whether just your company logo is on the bag or the entire bag is printed with a picture or design that represents your company, plastic bags can be an important marketing tool. Custom plastic bags run slightly more than plain plastic bags. You can purchase custom plastic T-shirt bags for around 10 cents a piece. You will also have to factor in extra charges for multiple printed colors and setup fees. These fees can run upward of $50 per order.

Places like Premier Packaging have several plastic bag options you can customize for your business. You can also have plastic bags made for your company at 4 All Promos. Decide on the type of plastic bag you would like to purchase The price of plastic bags is ultimately due to the durability of the bag and any accessories such as handles and drawstrings that you want on the bag. Frosted plastic bags can cost on average 50 cents per bag for orders of 1,000 or more bags. The same frosted bag would cost around $1 a piece for minimum orders of around 100 bags. Drawstring bags generally run around 50 cents a piece but aren't offered in as many colors as some of the other choices. Depending on the size, colored supergloss plastic retail bags can be purchased for around 30 cents a piece.

Absorbent, Ink. carries several plastic bag varieties. Plastic BagMart, too, carries everything from clear plastic bags to drawstring plastic bags.

Think about purchasing a few different styles of plastic bags for your business. You can use the cheaper 10-cent bags for small items and larger printed bags for larger items that people passing by are more likely to notice.

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Plastic bags can be a very important tool for your business. Custom printed plastic bags can get your company name out in the marketplace and potentially bring you new business. And other types of personalized plastic bags can offer something to your customer that they are unlikely to forget where it came from. Plastic bags have a variety of uses, making them very versatile and helpful to your overall business plan. Figuring out.

People in Britain use an average of 300 plastic bags every year. Each bag lasts up to 400 years, spending the vast majority of that time in a landfill site or strewn across the British countryside. People are becoming increasingly aware that we need to reduce our use of plastic bags. In Ireland, a tax of 15cents per bag resulted in a 90% drop in plastic bag usage, and raised 3.5 million Euros which was spent on environmental projects. Bangladesh has banned polythene bags altogether while Taiwan and Singapore are taking steps to discourage their use. This petition was started on 24th July 2007. We aimed to get 10,000 signatures, which we achieved on 18th September. Letters about the petition were sent to Hilary Benn, the Chancellor and the Prime Minister. We are still keen to get more signatures to show the amount of public feeling on this issue. For press enquiries, please see this press release. Please take a moment to sign the petition below to introduce a similar tax (to be spent on environmental projects) of 10p per bag in Britain. If you have any questions or comments, please contact us. We have created a document version of the petition here, and we would be massively grateful if you could spend an hour or so in your local shopping centre, social club or place of worship to get some signatures. If you would like to tell your friends about this petition, please use this email.

We, the undersigned, call on the British government to introduce a tax of 10p on each plastic bag issued, to be spent explicitly on environmental projects.

Monday, April 02, 2007 by. Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor Key concepts. Food, Plastic bags and The environment

In late March, 2007, San Francisco became the first U. S. city to ban the use of plastic bags by grocery stores. For the record, I'm in favor of the San Francisco bag ban. It's the right decision. Given that plastic bags take 1000 years to decompose in landfill, we need to take action right now to stop adding more plastic bags to the planet. And yet, as I'm pointing out in this article, isn't it interesting how easy it is to ban plastic bags that are dangerous for the environment but how difficult it is to ban chemical food ingredients that are dangerous to human health? The reason behind this, of course, is that plastic bag companies have a terrible lobby, but big food giants practically run Congress and government regulators like the USDA and FDA. Banning cancer-causing chemicals from foods has been attempted many times (even by a former top official at the USDA many decades ago), but has never been successful. (I've documented some of this history in my book

Email this article to a friend Share this article on. NewsVine | digg | del. icio. us Permalink to this article. Reprinting this article. Non-commercial OK, cite NaturalNews. com with clickable link. Embed article link. (copy HTML code below). The Plastic Bag Ban (comic)

Materials Needed. numerous white, blue and yellow plastic grocery bags, M hook Finished Size. 15 inches high x 16 inches wide not including the straps Note. Do not use hook that you don't want to break or be stained. I have noticed that my hook has numerous stains of dye on it from the bags, also this is hard on the hook so you don't want to use your good Brittany hooks while crocheting with plastic bags.-) Directions. with white bags ch 28 Round 1 - hdc in 2nd ch from hook and in each remaining ch, working around the backside of the ch hdc in each st, join with a sl st to 1st hdc (54 total) Round 2-5 - ch 1, hdc in each st around, join with a sl st to 1st hdc at the end of round 5 change to yellow bags, do not cut white bags Round 6-7 ch 1, with yellow bags, hdc in each st around, join with a sl st to 1st hdc, cut yellow bags, at end of round 7 pick up the dropped white bags Round 8-10 - ch 1, with white, hdc in each st around, join with a sl st to 1st hdc, at end of round 10 change to blue bags, do not cut white bags Round 11- 13 - ch 1, with blue bags, hdc in each st around, join with a sl st to 1st hdc, cut blue bags, at end of round 13, pick up the dropped white bags Round 14-20 - ch 1, with white, dc in each st around, join with a sl st to 1st hdc, at end of round 20 change to yellow bags, do not cut white bags Round 21 - ch 1, with yellow, hdc in each st around, join with a sl st to 1st hdc, cut yellow bags, at end of round 21 change to white bags Round 22- ch 1, with white hdc in next 7 sts, ch 24, sk 8 sts, hdc in the next 19 sts, ch 24, sk 8 sts, hdc in next 12, join with a sl st to 1st hdc Round 23 - ch 1, sc in next 6sts, work 28 sc around the next ch 24 sp on last round, sc in next 19 sts, work 28 scs around the next ch 24 sp on last round, sc in next 13 sps, join with a sl st in beg sc (94 total) Round 24 - ch 1, sc in each st around (94 total)

The U. S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has received an average of about 25 reports a year describing deaths to children who suffocated due to plastic bags. Almost 90 percent of them were under one year of age. Recent reports often describe bags originally used for dry cleaning or storage. Some may have been used to protect bedding and furniture, and others just were not carefully discarded. Most dry cleaning bags and some other plastic bags bear a voluntary label such as. "Warning. To avoid danger of suffocation, keep this plastic bag away from babies and children. Do not use this bag in cribs, beds, carriages or playpens. The plastic bag could block nose and mouth and prevent breathing. This bag is not a toy."

Plastic garbage bag (filled with clothes) fell over victim's face and mouth while victim was on adult bed.

Child slept on mattress covered by plastic bag. Never put children to sleep on or near plastic bags.

Plastic Shopping Bag IssuesPACIA is committed to the elimination of plastics bags in the litter stream. Litter

Banning plastic bags will not solve the litter problem. It is a behavioural issue, not a product issue

75% of plastic shopping bags have a recognised second use as kitchen tidy liners, nappy bags, household storage, etc.

Most households use plastic shopping bags to line rubbish bins. This is a very appropriate second use. The bags do not degrade in landfill, so no greenhouse gases are emitted nor ground water polluted

How could it be policed? What if supermarkets were banned from using plastic bags, but pharmacies and takeaway food outlets still used them?

There is no evidence that any plastic shopping bags have harmed marine life. In fact, when the Queensland

Government insisted that plastic fishing bait bags be made of degradable plastic against the industry's advice, there was an increase in littering as people's attitude was. It doesn't matter, it will degrade. This action increased the litter problem and risk to marine and bird life because the bags gradually degraded to bite-sized pieces.

Other facts Top Facts A Handful of Ugly Numbers Consumption Environmental Impact Solutions Problems with Plastic Bottles About Ireland's PlasTax Waste-Free Lunches Impact on Oceans Trends From Around the World Myth-Busting The Hidden Costs of Cheap Reusable Shopping Bags Recycling Can Fix This, Right? The Real Cost of "Free" Why Paper is No Better Than Plastic What About Biodegradable Bags? Top 10 reasons why bans don't make sense Buying Guides Reduce, Reuse and Save Top Reasons to Shop with Us Top 10 Tips for A Less Wasteful 2009 Materials Recycled PET - A Sustainable Path for Plastic Hemp - Nature's Super Fiber What makes organic cotton great

Want to know more about Ireland's wildly successful PlasTax? How about numbers on consumption? Think paper bags are better than plastic bags?.Think again, and be in the know. Top Facts - Consumption

Each year, an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide. That comes out to over one million per minute. Billions end up as litter each year.

According to the EPA, over 380 billion plastic bags, sacks and wraps are consumed in the U. S. each year.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the U. S. goes through 100 billion plastic shopping bags annually. (Estimated cost to retailers is $4 billion)

According to the industry publication Modern Plastics, Taiwan consumes 20 billion bags a year - 900 per person.

According to Australia's Department of Environment, Australians consume 6.9 billion plastic bags each year - 326 per person. An estimated 0.7% or 49,600,000 end up as litter each year. Top Facts - Environmental Impact

Hundreds of thousands of sea turtles, whales and other marine mammals die every year from eating discarded plastic bags mistaken for food.

Plastic bags don't biodegrade, they photodegrade - breaking down into smaller and smaller toxic bits contaminating soil and waterways and entering the food web when animals accidentally ingest.

Windblown plastic bags are so prevalent in Africa that a cottage industry has sprung up harvesting bags and using them to weave hats, and even bags. According to the BBC, one group harvests 30,000 per month.

According to David Barnes, a marine scientist with the British Antarctic Survey, plastic bags have gone "from being rare in the late 80s and early 90s to being almost everywhere from Spitsbergen 78 degrees North [latitude] to Falklands 51 degrees South [latitude]."

Plastic bags are among the 12 items of debris most often found in coastal cleanups, according to the nonprofit Center for Marine Conservation. Top Facts - Solutions

In 2001, Ireland consumed 1.2 billion plastic bags, or 316 per person. An extremely successful plastic bag consumption tax, or PlasTax, introduced in 2002 reduced consumption by 90%. Approximately 18,000,000 liters of oil have been saved due to this reduced production. Governments around the world are considering implementing similar measures.

Each high quality reusable shopping bag you use has the potential to eliminate hundreds, if not thousands, of plastic bags over its lifetime.

2002 marked the plastic bag's 25th anniversary. Since their introduction trillions of plastic bags have been consumed. Add to this huge sum all the disposable paper bags used globally, and the numbers get even more staggering. It's time to break the cycle.

Read More. Disposable Bags, LA Bans Plastic Bags, LA Plastic Bag Ban, Plastic Bag Ban, Plastic Bags, Save The Bag Coalition, Green News

LOS ANGELES Los Angeles shoppers soon won't hear the question, "Paper or plastic?" at the checkout line. The City Council voted Tuesday to ban plastic shopping bags from stores, beginning July 1, 2010. Shoppers can either bring their own bags or pay 25 cents for a paper or biodegradable bag. The council's unanimous vote also puts pressure on the state, which is considering an Assembly bill that would impose bag recycling requirements on stores. City officials said their ban would not be implemented if the state passes the bill and requires at least a 25-cent charge per bag. "We've gotten to a point where we need to act as a city, where we can have real results," said Councilman Ed Reyes, who proposed the bag ban. "We're trying to do it in a way where we can educate and inform the public of what we're doing." Reyes said the ban will minimize cleanup costs for the city and reduce trash that collects in storm drains and the Los Angeles River. The city estimates more than 2 billion plastic bags are used each year in Los Angeles. About 5 percent of plastic bags and 21 percent of paper bags are recycled in California. Banning plastic bags will not solve the litter problem, said an attorney who opposes the regulation of plastic bags. "We've had enough of politicians accepting the misinformation that's spread around the Internet about plastic bags," said Stephen Joseph of the Save the Plastic Bag Coalition, which represents bag manufacturers. Joseph said the city motion gives "a free pass" to paper bags, which he argued are biodegradable but consume more materials and natural resources to make. Three percent of the bag fee will be returned to the retailer, 3 percent will go to the state, and the rest will go back to the city to fund an education campaign. Last year, San Francisco passed the nation's first bag ban, which took effect in November.

LOS ANGELES mdash. Los Angeles shoppers soon won't hear the question, Paper or plastic? at the checkout line. The City Council voted Tuesday to ban plastic shopping bags from stores, beginning Jul.

This whole debate could be rendered moot if cities and counties turn to plasma arc garbage-to-energy technology. Here in Florida, Tallahassee and St. Lucie counties are building co-generation plants that will harvest solid waste from existing landfills, zap them with 20,000F degree electric arcs and then use the gas to drive electricity-producing turbines. AT St Lucie, the 100 MW or electricity generated will be sold on to FP the extra steam will be sold to a Tropicana Orange Juice processing plant and the slag to contractors for paving materials. So plastic bags are recycled into energy (lots of BTUs trapped in these bags!) and new roads / repaired roads. Problem solved. Oh, and landfills gone in 18 years. Article here.

As cities and states start to ban plastic bags, I know that my Collection of "Reusable Shopping Bags" will be the bearer of good news in the coming "Green" revolution. The Collection (the World"s Largest) and BLOG are the repository of information about "Reusable Shopping Bags" and the phenomena of what is happening right now. The Collection will be on display in September at the Hickory Corner Library in East Windsor, NJ. Please stop by or have an associate contact me for more information. You may view the Collection and read comments from industry, consumers and bloggers at. www. Crafts2Press. BlogSpot. com/#NEXT Glen Daless

California is a great state. . Medical Marijuana is legal and plastic bags are illegal. . I have to get a job in Southern Cal. .

No mention in this article that plastic bags are petroleum based - another great reason not to use them or use them as little as possible. good on la.

I cannot believe the people who are so resistant to the idea of reusable cloth bags. I've been using the same 10 cloth bags for 14 years. With the $0.05 a bag rebate I get each trip, my bags paid for themselves long ago and are now making me money. It doesn't take long to get into the habit of bringing them on shopping trips. And they all stuff inside one bag, so space isn't a concern. I do not understand our disposable society. Plastic/paper bags, paper plates, plastic "silverware", paper napkins, paper towels, baby wipes, diapers, and tissue paper. Reusable versions of these products last decades with proper care. I guess the rise of our disposable society came with the rise in disposable income.

Bringing your own bag makes you look like a homeless person." I guess we frenchs are all viewed as homeless persons then, because plastic bags have been banned here for some years.-) It doesn't really matter. Anyway you all think we're broke because we've also been riding buses or driving toy cars for decades.-)

How about getting back to removing the ban on INDUSTRIAL HEMP? Hemp can be used to make environmentally friendly biodegradable plastic bags in place of crude oil. Plastic bag ban is just DUMB DUMB DUMB !

Plastic bags are really awful for the environment. Encouraging people to use re-usable bags makes much, much more sense than filling up landfills with them. get with the program. If we're gonna leave something to our children, we need to start taking care of the world.

Our household quit using plastic bags about a year ago. once we got a good supply of reusable ones we keep some stashed in the car and some in the house. it took a while to get into the habit of remembering but now it's just second nature. our grocery store gives a 5 cent discount for every reusable bag i fill. for xmas and birthdays i always wrap a separate gift that is just reusable bags. you'd be surprised how many people have gotten in on the act from that small gesture.

No more plastic bags in L. A.? But if Joan Rivers can't cover the red carpet at the Oscars, who will?

In a recent survey, respondents consider 56%* of theirplastic shopping bags handed outby supermarkets were unnecessary and 80%* ofNew Zealandshoppers believe that supermarkets could do more to reduce the numbers of plastic bagsthey give out.

* Kiwi PlasticBag Concern Research. February 2007 click here to download. Despite the fact that plastic bags make up a small proportion of the waste stream they are nevertheless an environmental concern and can also be held up as a waste reduction icon to consumers.

Until we noticed the dumps filling up, most of us never thought about the stream of plastics flowing through our lives - 18 million tons each year, of which 6.5 million tons is packaging and over 3 billion dollars worth is plastic bags in which to throw the other plastics out. (Donella H. Meadows, The Global Citizen.)

November 27, 2003A selection ofsupermarkets in Shanghai, Chinas largest city, will charge shoppers for plastic bags from 2004 in an attempt to reduce waste. The bag fees are part of a three year campaign to clean up pollution. Supermarkets in Shanghaigive away more than one million bagsper day - these either end up in landfills or blowing around the city as litter.

March 2002- The Clean and Green image of Ireland was threatened by the intense littering of plastic bags. The Government has now imposed a charge on all plastic shopping bags (of around 30 NZ Cents per bag). The Irish model has shown that there was a change in behaviour by shoppers almost overnight. There have been reports of a (maintained) 97.5% reduction in plastic bag distribution. Thecharge has generated approximately 10 million (NZ$ 5 million). This money will be channelled into a fund to promote waste management and environmental initiatives.

Environment Ministers have challenged retailers to voluntarily reduce the 6.9 billion bags used each year. They are now looking at introducing mandatory measures.2003 - Coles Bay, Tasmania have banned plastic bags altogether and are providing residents with alternatives such as calico bags.

2003 - The northern state of Himachal Pradesh has implemented a total ban on plastic bags - this includes the banning of the production, storage, use, sale and distribution of polythene bags. Penalties are severe - they include up to seven years in jail or a fine of up to 100,000 Rupees. The law is based on legislation passed by the national parliament, but Himachal Pradesh is the first state to have implemented it.

There are several organisations developing positive alternatives to plastic bags and raising awareness within local communities.

Christchurch City Council is collecting plastic shopping bags from the kerbside as part of their recycling collection. (April 2004)The collected bags are sorted at Recovered Material Foundation paper depot and packed into bales. The bales are sent to Christchurch company Range Industries, which has devised a process called thermo-fusion which turns the supermarket bags into durable plastic planks suitable for boxing, pallets and fenceposts. A bale can contain up to 25,000 bags and weigh around 800kg. At Range Industries, that bale makes up to 1000m of plastic planking (approx. 100mm x 18mm).Go to www. ccc. govt. nz/Waste/Recycling/Plastic. asp for the full story.

Is a Twin Cities-based plastic bag and film recycling program managed by Minnesota Waste Wise, a subsidiary of the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce. Consumers may deposit clean and dry plastic bags in specially designed

Collection bin for consumer plastic bags. Then collect and store plastic bags from consumers and plastic film from business activities. The material will be picked up by Merrick on a scheduled route for a collection fee.

Whywaste plastic bags?Choose reusable bags! This is the message that National Environment Agency (NEA), together with its Working Group partners, i. e. major supermarket chains and retailers, the Singapore Environment Council and the Singapore Retailers Association would like to bring across when we embark on the campaign. The objective of the campaign is to educate shoppers to use reusable bags instead of single-use plastic carrier bags whenever possible.

The campaign aims to reach out to two main groups of people – the shoppers and the cashiers at retail outlets. Educational materials such as standees, wobblers, posters and pamphlets are displayed at 686 participating retail outlets to raise awareness among shoppers. Cashiers are trained to ask shoppers in a polite manner if they need a plastic bag for small purchases. Reusable bags are also made available for sale at low cost by participating retailers. Furthermore, the retailers have also provided incentives to encourage customers to use reusable bags instead of single use plastic bags as summarised in the table below. Back to top Participating retailers and their incentive schemes

11-18 Feb 06. Direct incentive – Token given to shoppers who did not take Prime’s plastic bags but brought their own bags or purchase reusable bags from Prime instead.

Eligibility. All shoppers who do not ask for plastic bags and bring their own bags for purchase (e. g. shopper can bring his/her own bag or buy reusable bags from Prime).

Shopper does not take plastic bags from store and bring his/her own bags or buy reusable bags from Sheng Siong.

About 2.5 billion plastic shopping bags are used every year. That’s about 2,500 bags used per family per year.

Plastic bags thrown away as litter, dirty our public places, rivers and canals, and may even clog up drains, and this would lead to stagnant water and mosquito breeding.

Plastic bags litter despoils nature trails, beaches and even chokes up mangroves and poses a threat to marine lives.

If each family uses one less plastic bag a week, Singapore could savemore than 50 million bags each year.

Plastic bags are made from oil, a finite resource. By using reusable bags during our shopping trips, we will use fewer plastic bags and help to conserve earth’s resources.

Plastic bags are not disposed of at Semakau Landfill. They are incinerated, along with other domestic wastes, at our four incineration plants.

Hence, unlike countries that landfill their waste, the non-biodegradability of plastic bags is not a problem in Singapore.

Say ‘No’ to plastic bags when the items are packaged with handles (e. g. toilet rolls, rice packet, etc).

When using a plastic bag as waste liner, fully fill the bag before throwing it away wherever possible.

Kinder to hands and fingers than plastic carrier bags when filled up and carried as they are better designed for the purpose,

Market Basket on Somerville Avenue had plastic-bag recycling bins for more than a year before the city's new requirement. (John Tlumacki/Globe Staff)

Plastics, Benjamin? Not in Somerville, not now. On Jan. 14, the city announced that residents could no longer put recyclables in plastic shopping bags, because the recycling plant can't handle them. Paradoxically, the annoucement came two days after the city started requiring large businesses to recycle those self-same bags. A drop in the price of recycled plastic caused the changes at the curb - or, to be accurate, enforced the changes.

The city's recycling contractor, never did accept plastic bags, said Sean Murphy, Somerville's director of constituent services. Some residents used them anyway to store extra bottles and cans. Casella employees simply shook the contents out of the bags, which can tangle up the machines."When the stuff was making money, they were willing to look the other way," said David Lutes, director of the city's Office of Sustainability and Environment. Now it's simply not worth the trouble. The city's hurting, too. With recycling, Somerville was always in the red, spending $460,899 in 2008 on 4,328 tons. However, in the past some money came back into the coffers via the sale of recycled goods, about $120,000 in the 2007-'08 fiscal year, Lutes estimated. But "the bottom fell out" of the plastics market last summer, he said. (The store ordinance passed in early July.) The value of recycled paper soon followed. With less trade, there's less need for cardboard. with newspaper circulation down, less need for newsprint. The city had been considering "single-stream" recycling, under which paper and plastic go into the same bin. The price drops put the kibosh on that, Mayor Joe Curtatone said in December. Residents may still pack paper and containers in clear plastic bags, a concession from Casella to reduce litter, Lutes said. Pizza boxes and other food-stained paper can't be recycled. Neither can Styrofoam "packing peanuts."It's possible to recycle plastic shopping bags, Lutes said, but "my understanding is it's much more expensive," especially when they're covered with drips of stale Pepsi and other household gunk. Companies want clean bags, like the barrels-ful a large store can collect. The city's commercial plastic bag ordinance specifies that stores with 5,000 or more square feet must collect and recycle all clean "plastic carryout bags."Of course, stores are a major source of plastic bags. Estimating six per customer, Mike Dunleavy, manager of the Market Basket supermarket on Somerville Ave., figures that his store distributes 180,000 plastic bags a week. It's not hard to believe. On a recent morning, the front of the store was a bumper car rink of shopping carts, each loaded with white plastic bags. The market beat the city to the punch on plastic-bag recycling, introducing the option well over a year ago, said Dunleavy, who added that customers appeared to like the service. Many, he said, "want to not use plastic bags at all."Under the new rules, fines for stores that fail to offer the recycling option range from $100 to $300. On the resident side, some people came home on Jan. 12 to find their recycling bins festooned with tickets, Lutes said. They were just warnings, however, with no financial penalty. Casella, the city contractor, gave short notice of the crackdown, but the city got an indefinite reprieve to educate the public. So far, that has translated to a press release online and some training for the recycling pickup crew (not employed by Casella), Murphy said. He planned to use the city's 311 information system to get the word out, but first had to learn how big a problem the plastic bags actually were. He worried that the bags indicated larger problems for the recycling business. The cost drop "just doesn't bode well" for plastic recycling, he said. "If there's not value [in it] . . . it's not as attractive for them to collect."Maureen Barillaro, a volunteer with Somerville Climate Action, was concerned that the crackdown might make recycling seem too big a hassle. In her neighborhood, she'd observed, many people don't put out their recycling correctly. That said, she thought that recycling was supposed to make people think. "If you want to throw something away and not think about it, that's what the trash is for," she said. Lutes said residents' care "will help us maintain our costs, and it will hopefully help on the revenue side," he said. Concerned citizens can take comfort in knowing that recycling is still worth the city's while. Even in today's market, Lutes said, it's cheaper than throwing all those tomato cans, junk mail, and water bottles in the trash.

Anton By rights the world and its dog should now know the name Daniel Burd. For Daniel Burd has an eco-friendly solution for disposing of the plastic bag menace. About half a trillion plastic bags are produced globally each year, but they take up to 1000 years to decompose. In the meantime they can migrate to the oceans and be ingested by wildlife, with fatal results. Burd's discovery is bacteria which he reckons in combination can eliminate poly(ethyl)ene bags in about three months. The judges of the 2008 Canada-Wide Science Fair in Ottawa agreed, and awarded Burd top prize. You can read the report he presented ("

) here (pdf)]. Burd started with the idea that if plastic bags are being degraded by microorganisms in nature, it should be possible to isolate them. He collected soil samples from a local landfill site, and spent three months culturing them up on a diet exclusively of ground-up polythene bag. At this stage, he reasoned, if there were bacteria of interest, there should be enough of them to make a measurable difference. And so his experiments began. The cultured broth was introduced to weighed amounts of polythene film strips, and the two were allowed to commerce for six weeks. Measure against a control sample of boiled broth which showed no change, the active samples showed a promising 17 per cent weight loss. Burd then grew the broth on agar and found it contained four different types of bacteria. These he worked to separate, and tested them individually and in pairs for their polythene appetites. While one type of microbe showed a marked predilection for plastic bag, he also observed that a combination was even better at eliminating polythene. An identification kit enabled him to identify these as Sphingomonas and Pseudomonas types. Pseudomonas has been cited in previous research, but his discovery of the much more ravenous Sphingomonas, and the rest of his experiment, is new. Further research by Burd on his microbe consortium, as his paper terms it, showed that their rate of digesting polythene was affected by temperature, population density, and by the level of concentration of added sodium acetate. He eventually achieved a stonking 42 per cent elimination of polythene in six weeks. On this basis, Burd projects that a complete dispersal of polythene is possible in under three months.

You can do this at home, folks, and you don't need lab equipment, or even to chop up the plastic bags. Burd is reported as having tried five or six whole bags in a bucket of his special goo, and the process worked just as well. "All you need is a fermenter . . . your growth medium, your microbes and your plastic bags." said Burd. He points out that little energy is required as an input, as the microbes produce heat as they work, and they generate a meagre 0.01 per cent of their body mass as waste CO2. So we are unlikely to change the climate by helping nature's little helpers dispose of plastic bags the Burd way. An impressive array of awards garnered by this nice piece of science at the Canada-Wide Science Fair is listed here, where it may be noted that among his many talents young Daniel can also write a mean CV.

Britain's biggest supermarkets say they are on course to reduce by half their use of plastic bags by Easter. Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's and Waitrose are making progress in cutting the number of free bags handed out to shoppers in a victory for The Independent campaign highlighting the environmental threat posed by packaging. Plastic bags are made using oil and take hundreds of years to degrade in landfill sites, often after a single use. An estimated 13 billion plastic bags are handed out by UK retailers every year. In February last year, six trade associations and 22 leading shops agreed to cut the use of plastic bags by 25 per cent by the end of this year. The initiative was agreed with the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the public-funded anti-waste organisation Wrap, amid discussion of whether the Government should ban free carrier bags. Supermarkets have moved free bags behind the till and put up signs urging the use of bags for life. Reporting their progress to MPs this week, the stores said they had succeeded in reducing the number of bags and would go beyond their original pledge. Appearing before the Commons Environment and Rural Affairs Select Committee into waste management in England, Asda said it had achieved a 30 per cent cut so far. Justin Walker-Palin, Asda's head of sustainability and ethics, said cashiers had been told to discuss free bags with shoppers, adding. We're aiming for a 50 per cent reduction by next Easter. Thirty per cent fewer bags have been issued at Waitrose 40 million less. Sainsbury's said it had cut free bags by 28 per cent, while reusable bag sales were up 200 per cent. Tesco expects to give away 50 per cent fewer bags than 2006 by the spring. Asda told the committee that it had stopped 99 per cent of operational waste from going to landfill in two of its 353 stores by using all biodegradable waste to generate electricity. Tesco was cutting unnecessary road miles and using some alternatives to lorries such as canal barges and trains. Waitrose is aiming to cut CO2 from deliveries by 15 per cent from 2005 levels by 2013. During the committee hearing, all parties agreed action should be taken to cut the amount of clothing going to landfill in five years, the proportion of textiles in landfill has risen from 5 per cent to 30 per cent, a hike blamed on the Primark effect low-quality fast fashion. The committee's report on waste will be published in January. An environmental handful. Progress in the war on plastic bags * Tesco said in August 2006 it had saved two billion bags since Green Clubcard Points were launched. Its carrier bag use is 40 per cent lower than two years ago. * Since the Government set its bag target, Asda has seen a 30 per cent reduction in plastic carriers. Sales of bags-for- life have increased by 265 per cent. * Between February and October this year, Waitrose gave out 68 million fewer bags than in the same period last year around 30 per cent less. * Sainsbury's has seen a 27 per cent reduction in free plastic bags up to June this year. Its year-on-year rise in the use of bags for life has been 200 per cent.

What do you do with mountains of spare plastic shopping bags? Recycle them, of course. Simply collect the bags, cut them into strips and knit. This knitted carryall is such an easy project once you're used to working with the different textures of plastic. The simple handle is made from leather throng -- looped through the plastic and knotted -- to give some needed contrast to the disposable plastic. Use the bag for storage just about anywhere in the home or garden (even in the kitchen as a container for collecting other plastic bags). Experiment with different colors, try regular or random stripes or use just a single color for a chic monochromatic look.

MaterialsAssorted plastic shopping bags, cut into 12"-wide strips (see below)1 pair size 10-12 (6.5 or 7mm) knitting needlesMultipurpose polypropylene string (available from hardware stores)Large sewing needle3-12 yards leather thong, cut into two equal lengths of 1-34 yardsSizeOne size (15" high by 12-12" wide by 7" deep)Gauge14 stitches and 20 rows = 4"/10cm in garter stitch using size 10-12needlesAlways work a gauge swatch and change needles accordingly, if necessary.

Cutting the bags into strips1. Cut off the top section of each plastic bag to remove the handles. 2. Starting at the open top edge and cutting through one side at a time, cut a narrow strip in a spiral all the way down the bag (a little like peeling an orange) to make one continuous length. If the strips are too wide, simply cut them in half again. if they're too narrow, simply knit with two strips together.3. Knot different color lengths together as desired (figure A) and wind the strips into balls. Knitting the backWith size 10-12 needles, cast on 44 stitches. Continue in garter stitch (in other words, knit every row) until piece measures 15", ending with a wrong side row. Bind off. Knitting the frontWork as for back. Knitting the gussetWith size 10-12 needles, cast on 20 stitches. Continue in garter stitch as on back until piece measures 42", ending with a wrong side row. Bind off.

Making up the bagStarting at one end of gusset, pin or baste to the back around three edges, easing and straightening to ensure the corners are square. Repeat with the front to form the other side of the bag. Using polypropylene string and a large sewing needle, stitch all the way around the edges with tiny running stitches (figure B). (Do not use backstitch as this will distort the knitted plastic.)Making the handlesAcross the back, mark the position of the handles with a colored thread (approximately 4" in from each side of the bag and 1-14" from the top edge).Thread the leather thong from the inside through to the outside of the knitted bag at one marked point and then back through at the other marked point. Thread the thong through twice more and knot on the inside of the bag. Repeat for the front. Knit Bit. When reaching for a soap to wash your natural fibers, treat it like you would your own hair. You wouldn't wash your locks in dish soap, would you? What a mess! Try using a pH-balanced shampoo instead. Next. Monitor/TV Cozy

To look at the news surrounding China's recent announcement of a ban on thin plastic bags you'd think the gates to environmental heaven had just swung open. I'm sure I could see those very gates if the air outside my office windows wasn't full of nitrogen oxides and coal soot generated by the perma-gridlock on East Chang'an Ave. There are plenty of stories out there about this. I won't link to them all. Just go to Google news and search China + Plastic + Bags and stand back. Of course you'll have to use a proxy server or the VPN of your choice as, natually, any attempt to input "China" into Google News results in a Nanny time-out. Good thing I'm not shopping for crockery. China's plastic bag ban is guaranteed to be one of this century's great exercises in futility. Hundreds of years from now, when future historians living on a planet that has come to terms with being knee deep in PET bottles, plastic bags and discarded mobile phones compare Sisyphean tasks, this will probably rank right up there with trying to rehab Britney Spears and rooting for the Chicago Cubs. Don't get me wrong. Plastic bags are truly one of mankind's most vile creations, right up there with the "Lyte Funky Ones", Easy-Cheese and Hummers. The goddamn things are everywhere. The first men to land on Mars will find plastic bags wafting around in the red dust. That those men will probably be Chinese is certainly poetic justice. Sea turtles famously choke to death on them. When I lived in a westward facing apartment I used to judge winter windspeed by the velocity of the plastic bags whipping by my window. Now that I've moved I judge it by the plume coming out of the immense smokestack at the power station just east of Dawang Lu and the plastic bags whipping by my window. My wife and I use fabric shopping bags, and we try to extend the life of those plastic grocery bags we do get by using them to line our wastebins, take our lunches to work, scoop the cat litter and so on. One of things that really offends me is that some supermarkets in China use plastic bags that are so inferior that bunches of parsely can poke holes in them, thus rendering them completely useless for any further applications (especially cat litter). Of course, those same bags can hang upon roadside shrubs for years. Oddly, the other thing that is always hanging from roadside shrubs in China is men's underwear. I don't understand it, but there it is. So I applaud the intent behind China's new ban on bags. And if it's enforced with the same vigor as the "bans" on pirated luxury goods, unsafe coal mines and dumping pure PCBs into Chinese rivers I am sure we can all look forward to a healthy, green future. But the ban is unlikely to be vigorously enforced. So much of China's economy is gray, it's hard to figure out how it could be enforced. This is true even in Beijing, much less in the provinces, where the mountains are high (because they are buried deep in plastic bags and festooned in underwear) and the emperor is far away. Are the chengguan going to wander around with calipers testing the thickness of plastic bags? Say, buddy. Those look a little thin. Seems unlikely in a country where I recently saw a car complete a U-turn on Chang'an Ave. by turning left from the right-hand sub road, cutting across four lanes of traffing and avoiding a fiery, head-on collision by using the crosswalk as a turn lane. In front of the old Transport Ministry building. Seriously, if you're not going to bust that, why are you going to care about plastic bags?No, I figure plastic bags will rank pretty low on the list of enforcement priorities, especially in the sticks, where they will be made by grungy, little unlicensed factories, delivered by men on tricycles and sold out of village kiosks where the same tea eggs have been pickling in tar next to the pesticide bottles since 1962. There won't be much of a tax audit trail there. And if the local cadre has hand in the local bag factory (and why wouldn't he?) the chances will be even lower. Of course, the bags aren't actually banned, except for the thinnest and nastiest of the bunch. They're going to be charged at 1 mao a pop. And this in the midst of an inflation panic. This is exactly the kind of thing that no one in the cities in will notice and people in the impoverished countryside will either suffer from or, more likely, ignore. If you're going to introduce 1 mao into this equation, I suggest paying people 1 mao a bag to return the things, like a bottle deposit. The same beady-eyed uncles who snatch half-full PET drink bottles out of your hands at tourist sites would put paid to the stray bags pretty quickly. Finance that with a tax on Porsche Cayennes (speaking of mankind's vile creations) and I figure everything would balance out nicely. Not that we even have a straight answer on what the best alternative to plastic bags might be. In the old days it was easy. We had paper. Then we had sleek, space age plastic. But then plastic was bad, so we had paper as option, but we had to request it. But then it turned out that paper bags might be worse anyway (bleach and trees, you know) and plastic bags would be better if we were recycling them. But we weren't recycling, so the only option was to shell out fifteen bucks for Anya Hindmarch's preposterous "I'm not a plastic bag" fashion victim bag. Try putting the cat litter in a bag you just paid $15 for and see how the wife reacts. And then we all gave up and started ordering in and dumping our trash out the window into the courtyard. Plus ca change, etc. Or, of course, build a better mousetrap in the form of a cheap bag that actually biodegrades in a reasonable amount of time. They can do amazing things with corn starch these days. But, alas, there is no corn starch left because it's all going into American ethanol because we don't want our green energy supplies to be in the thrall of those sinister agents of evil, the Brazilians. It makes you want to put one of those bags over your head. But Chinese grocery bags are so cheap you can't even commit suicide with them. You just end up sitting there with a shredded bag over your head making little, flappy snare drum noises as you breathe. A dignified end it ain't.

Just dont idealize things in China. When peeps in Beijing made the decision, I am sure they were not expecting everybody in China to follow this rule. They know that this ban probablly will be strickly enforced in Beijng, shanghai, less enforced in 2nd tier cities, and completely forgotten in rural areas. Using plastic bags has become shopped habit of almost everyone in China. This cannt change overnight. There was another ban on using plastic fast food container a few years ago. and I think that ban worked alright

Hmmm.ban on plastic bags. Good luck. We recycle our bags.that is, we return them to the store and place them in the recycle bin with every shop. Here in the Great American Southwest, the supermarkets no longer offer a choice between paper and plastic. Strictly plastic. And more often than not, I have to bag my own groceries because the bagger is to busy flirting with his/her friends and keeps placing my glass jars in the same bag as my canned goods.

How many times have you tried to kill yourself with Chinese plastic bags, Will? I suggest you stop using this method and mimic the sea turtle instead. Pretend the bag is a jellyfish and eat it.

@Cat. Actually, I'm far to cheerful to try to kill myself. But I once thought that if I did try, the way to do it might be via an overdose of Chinese television. On further reflection, however, it might be slow and painful, not the anesthetizing slip into eternity it may seem. @WK. Divorced from the rant, I'm actually supportive of the plan. However I think it will be difficult to enforce. With fast food restaurants there were a limited number of big chains causing the problem. But plastic bags are --and this is not a trivial use of the following word -- ubiquitous. It will be much harder to control. The track record in other especially developing countries that have tried this is poor. Still, it would be nice if it works.

Will, go to that little Jingkelong in the last remaining slice of former Beijing just south of Blue Castle, opposite Soho, find the baijiu section, find the insanely cheap stuff that comes in plastic bags (don't worry, the bags are of a legal thickness, the chengguan won't shake you down unless they're thirsty). That would be far more effective than either Chinese plastic bags or Chinese TV. And as an added bonus, you can copy the sea turtles and eat the plastic bags afterwards, you know, just to make sure. Probably still won't be anaesthetising, but definitely effective.

I wonder if it would be better to reward those who don't use the plastic bags. I remember most of the grocery stores in the US gave a nickel for each bag the customer reused. They also had some recycling program for the plastic bags (but that was only at a few places). And I guess I missed something about the underwear in bushes. That's a rarity around here. Maybe more people go commando in Shenzhen.

Will, I remember when Taipei did something like this -- my initial thought was, good luck. NO ONE is going to follow this. Much to my surprise, some of my local friends were into the initiative - pulling a plastic bag out of their purses while we were in a 7-ELEVEN or in some other shop. China is a different story, but I'm taking the let's see what happens attitude. And so what if it only works in big cities? If it works at all, if some people here start thinking they can make a difference through 'free choice' - i. e. I think I *will* bring my own bag - that's a victory in itself. By the way, I cheer for the Cubs. Cheers, Boyce

Better yet, China should just look into turning plastic back into oil. But honestly, I've always felt that the plastic bags drifting whimsically in the windy gusts, floating past Beijing high rise after high rise and wandering in circles above the old siheyuans, that they have simply been a symbol of Beijing's aspirations to achieve something beautiful--or that they just took American Beauty a little too literally.

Cold Storage in Singapore is the biggest abuser of plastic bags I have ever come across. One for your carton of milk, another for your bag of oranges. I practically had to fight the cashiers NOT to give me so many bags. By the time I left Singapore, our house had two drawers crammed full of cold storage bags that we just couldn't recycle quick enough

Hmm. I don't know the technology how it found its way into your comment section, but the above Trackback from FT Germany is from my blog there, in which (just to tell you, as it's in German) I declare your plastic bag posting to be the most intelligent and well-written opinion on this topic. In the world. As we know it. And I venture to recommend to the millions of German readers to read your blog, as it is the best on China. Sorry to put so much pressure on you.

Damn Will.. you sure can write. I have long considered the plastic bag as one of China's national birds spottable wherever there be trees (the other is the way too common skinny assed long legged perilously hung building crane). that last paragraph/image was truly priceless. thanks for brightening up my global cooling day. I know wrong post here, but damn, you should write more posts about the lack of snow and we will end up with red lanterns, and grey snow with a topping of red and black firecracker waste and and plastic bags decorating the trees for Chinese New Years!! ya man.. i love this place!

Vincent Karega, the State Minister for Mining and Environment, said that investors have some provisions for using plastic bags though strict measures against manufacturing, use and importing are underway. "They (investors) only have to apply to Rwanda Environment Management Authority (REMA) explaining the rationale of their business," he explained yesterday in a phone interview. "REMA will inspect and approve if they deserve to use the bags. If they grant permission, the environmental body will still monitor their usage and disposal." Similarly, Rwanda Development Board through its investment and promotional agency is encouraging exporters to write officially to REMA in order to get full authorisation for the usage of plastic packages for export purposes. So far, SHEKINA, a horticulture company received an acceptance letter to use plastic materials for export purposes. On The Frontier Group (OTF), an American competitiveness consultancy firm had also requested government to lift the ban on tea industry for export purposes. A draft law that is yet to be passed stipulates penalties for persons who do not abide. The fines include a fee ranging from Rwf100,000 to Rwf500,000 or a prison sentence of 6-12 months for manufacturers of polythene bags.

Monday, April 02, 2007 by. Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor Key concepts. Food, Plastic bags and The environment

In late March, 2007, San Francisco became the first U. S. city to ban the use of plastic bags by grocery stores. For the record, I'm in favor of the San Francisco bag ban. It's the right decision. Given that plastic bags take 1000 years to decompose in landfill, we need to take action right now to stop adding more plastic bags to the planet. And yet, as I'm pointing out in this article, isn't it interesting how easy it is to ban plastic bags that are dangerous for the environment but how difficult it is to ban chemical food ingredients that are dangerous to human health? The reason behind this, of course, is that plastic bag companies have a terrible lobby, but big food giants practically run Congress and government regulators like the USDA and FDA. Banning cancer-causing chemicals from foods has been attempted many times (even by a former top official at the USDA many decades ago), but has never been successful. (I've documented some of this history in my book

Email this article to a friend Share this article on. NewsVine | digg | del. icio. us Permalink to this article. Reprinting this article. Non-commercial OK, cite NaturalNews. com with clickable link. Embed article link. (copy HTML code below). The Plastic Bag Ban (comic)

It was watching sea creatures choke on plastic bags in the Pacific Ocean that finally persuaded Rebecca Hosking that enough was enough. The British filmmaker had already recoiled in disgust at deserted Hawaiian beaches piled up with four feet of rubbish, the jetsam of Western consumerism washed up by an ocean teeming with plastic. Now, filming off the coast, she looked on aghast as sea turtles eagerly mistook bobbing translucent shapes in the water for jellyfish. "Sea turtles can't read Wal-mart or Tesco signs on plastic bags," fumes Ms. Hosking, who returned to Britain in March. "They will home in on it and feed on it. Dolphins mistake them for seaweed and quite often they'll eat them and it causes huge damage." Within a few weeks of coming back, Hosking persuaded her hometown to ban plastic bags outright and found herself in the vanguard of a sudden British revulsion for that most disposable convenience of the throwaway society. Stores, grass-roots groups, and citizens are joining forces to reduce national consumption of plastic bags, and Hosking is fielding hundreds of requests a day for guidance. Wave of plastic-bag activism Dumbstruck by what she'd seen off the Hawaiian coast during her year-long filmmaking trip, Hosking set up a local screening of her film and invited the town's 43 shopkeepers to come see where plastic bags end up. All but seven of them showed up. At the end of the viewing, held in a local hall, Hosking called for a show of hands in support of a voluntary ban on plastic bags. Every single hand went up. The rest of the town's shopkeepers quickly followed suit. On May 1, Modbury won bragging rights as the first plastic-bag-free town in Europe. Now, larger towns and even cities are calling up Hosking to ask how she did it. Supermarkets and other retailers are experimenting with plastic-bag-free days, reusable totes, or even buy-your-own bags to discourage usage. Retailer Sainsbury introduced a limited-edition reusable cotton bag with the logo "I am not a plastic bag," emblazoned on it. Priced at $10, within an hour 20,000 of them sold out. Others stores are trying out paper bags and "green" checkout lines for environmentally friendly customers who bring their own bags.

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Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg proposed a 5-cent fee on new plastic bags at the store register last week. While that figure was a penny lower than the 6 cents per bag proposed in November, another figure tucked on Page 34 of the 59-slide presentation [pdf] was a real eye-opener. The projected revenue for this user fee was $84 million a sharp increase from the last figure floated, just $16 million. Other estimates suggested the revenue would rise to $144 million by 2011 and $124 million in 2012. How did these numbers get so high?

Two things are happening, according to the mayors office. First, the scope of the proposed tax which would require approval from the State Legislature in Albany has been expanded beyond grocery stores. It would include bags given out by department stores, restaurants and other retailers. Its not just your local bodega, said Jason Post, a spokesman for the mayor. Its going to be your candy shop, your Macys. In addition, he said, the revenue estimate increased because the Department of Sanitation went back and looked at the waste stream more closely and found that there are far more plastic bags used in the city than we first thought. Still, the estimates were surprisingly aggressive. A $144 million estimate, at 5 cents a bag, means that 2.88 billion plastic bags would be used by New Yorkers each year, even with the fee. Past estimates put that figure at one billion new plastic bags. That breaks down to one bag for every man, woman and child in New York City every single day of the year. The site Reusablebags. com estimates that 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed annually around the globe. Do New Yorkers alone really consume more than 1 out every 300 plastic bags in the world? Though originally called a fee (which would only require City Council approval), the citys top budget official said it would be considered a tax (which, like the $900 million increase in the city’s sales tax, would require approval from Albany). The plan seems very likely to invite debate and discourse, as foot-bound New Yorkers seem unhappy at the prospect of carrying their own bags around to avoid the charges. But if the proposal passes, New York City would be following the lead of many European municipalities, and it would become one of the first places in the United States to assess a plastic bag tax. (Since 2007, San Francisco has simply banned plastic bags at the grocery store.) Some have noted that environmental equation on reusable versus disposable bags is not so clear-cut. The more durable bags require an order of magnitude of more energy to produce. The anti-plastic campaign has drawn a sharp defense from the American Chemistry Council (every product has a constituency). The council argues that a drop in disposable plastic bags means an uptick in the purchase and use of other bags, like garbage bags, since plastic is still needed for trash and pet waste. The council has enumerated what it calls plastic bag myths. In theory, disposable plastic bags can be recycled. But few are, despite a City Council bill that required large stores and chains to do so. Advocacy groups argue that each high-quality reusable shopping bag has the potential to eliminate hundreds, if not thousands, of plastic bags over its lifetime. Part of the purpose of the fee is to deter people from using the bags, Mr. Post said. Weve baked into this, that the plastic bag consumption is going to fall. That is why the revenue estimate dips $144 million to $124 million in 2012. But will bag consumption drop just 14 percent from year to year? After all, just a few weeks after Ireland adopted a 33-cent charge on plastic bags in 2002, plastic bag use decreased by 94 percent. Plastic bag use is not simply an issue of finances, but also public shame. Of course, 33 cents per bag is a bigger disincentive. Mr. Post said the mayors office is comfortable with its figures. That is our projection, he said. Could it be wrong? It certainly could.

Smug singletons. eaters-out. just plain eco-conscious folks who generate v little wasteNYC is awash in such people. We use plastic grocery bags to put out our (tiny amts of) garbage instead of the big white/black garbage bags others buy. re- and reuse plastic bags to carry all manner of things (groceries next week, lunch, books, clothes to laundromat/drycleaner). Were destitute enough with our meagre single (if still employed) incomes, rubbish studios, and wavering social/marital prospects (please god that Second Income)now WE have to PAY for the bags? Just to subsidize all the wasteful wankers? Lets just RECYCLE PLASTIC BAGS!

Wouldnt surprise me at all to see, on average, a plastic bag used by every person in New York daily. A couple days worth of groceries is easily 2 or 3 bagsthats 4 or 6, given that double-bagging is a given at the grocery store. Go into CVS to pick up a last-minute item? Thats a bag. Get Chinese delivered? Get batteries or a box of pencils or a shirt? Another bag. Seriously, you can easily rack up a dozen bags in half a day of errands. Not to mention the NY Times delivers their paper wrapped in a plastic bag. If you want to see how many plastic bags you use, stop throwing them out. Trust me, within a couple weeks, youll be begging people not to put purchases in a plastic bag. Its unbelievable how these things pile up.

A five cent tax you say? If I had a nickel for every plastic bag that has blown onto my front lawn or gotten tangled high up in the tree in front of my house, I could retire a wealthy man.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg proposed a 5-cent fee on new plastic bags at the store register last week. And how much does he suggest we pay for old bags?

I think the plastic bag tax is great, it would help me and (Im sure) many of my fellow New Yorkers) to grab one of their many recyclable bags BEFORE leaving their apartments to shop. And while were thinking of ways to fill our citys coffers, howsa about revisiting and enforcing litter laws/tickets for not picking up after oneself? Parking police could double up and hand out litterbug tickets as easily as they hand out ones for illegal parking?

Plastic bags can only be recycled once and when they get recycled its not into more bags! Most recycled plastic bags are turned to plastic deck boards and other plastic construction material. And although they enjoy a much longer second life when its over they go to the land fill. I cant help but beg the question, what did people do before there was free plastic bags everywhere?

The city wont collect even a quarter of what they plan. First, people will use substitutes including paper bags. You have to reaize paper manufacture is an extremely energy intensive operation. For anyone who has seen the inside of a paper mill, a pulp slurry is deposited in large rollers, the squeezed and dried in huge gas fired heaters that blow hot, dry air on it until dry. From a wet slurry to crisp paper it takes only seconds and uses gobs of energy,. Bag papers (Kraft) cousin, newsprint saw its price skyrocket last year, despite dwindling demand because of far higher energy costs. Ask your publisher about it. Taxing plastic bags under the guise of the ecology is a phoney. It is simply cover for another nuisance tax that New Yorkers will have to pay.

Get over it, people. Using your own bags instead of getting plastic bags everywhere you go is not that difficult. Of course you wont always have a bag on you when you pop into a store, but 5 cents is such a nominal fee. I love this comment. Next thing you know he will be adding stop light cameras to raise revenues. And why not? Why is it such an impossible demand that people pay for transgressions, particularly running red lights? Hell yeah, install cameras and fine people who break the law. Plastic bags have their own impact and doing something to encourage people to be more aware of their consumption is a solid, thoughtful idea. Providing much-needed revenue for the city is icing on the cake. Its unfortunate that people dont see the connection between city revenues and the citys ability to provide valuable services to its residents. That is the point of taxes.

If the goal truly is to reduce or eliminate consumption of plastic bags for the sake of the environment, a 5-cent per bag fee isnt going to cut it, as well the Mayor knows. Perhaps however 33 cents per bag is too big a disincentive. if consumption decreases by 94% here as in Ireland, the projected revenue goals will not be reached. Better to ban these bags outright, or impose a more rigorous schedule, than tax them in such a way as to insure their continued use.

>What did people do before free plastic bags? Free paper bags, which are biodegradable, and if something leaks, theyll biodegrade before your eyes, spilling your groceries all over the ground.

About time I say. This is great news for the NYC environment. No to plastic bags. Its time to start caring not just about your apartment, but also about your city and country (and planet).

I think this is wonderful. How much of an inconvenience can it be people, to carry around even ONE plastic bag at all times?! Give me a break. I carry three Baggu bags at all timesthey fold up nicely. so I never have to ask for a bag at any store. In addition, for those who used to use the store plastic bags for their own garbage or pet waste, theres no reason you cant continue to do that. Paying 5 cents per bag is considerably cheaper than if you were to BUY a box of trash bags. So in the long run, we will still hopefully lessen the waste of plastic bags, and at the same time gain revenue for the city. Everytime you buy something at the corner store, the drugstore, lunch takeout etc. EVERY vendor immediately puts it into a plastic bag. Theres no WAY your average NYer can find a use for the two average plastic bags they are given per day by vendors. So you will DEFINTELY be saving on plastic waste, if you just carry your own bag around with you 24/7, and then any and all purchases get dumped into that one bag. Only if you need an additional bag on any given day would you then accept another bag from a vendor. But with my three Baggu bags, its extremely rare now that I ever have to accept a bag from a vendor. In my small Queens neighborhood (where people seem to be less environmentally conscious), the bodega guys look at me like I have two heads, because I never will accept the plastic bag that they so eagerly want to give me with my purchase!.-)

The Chinese government says it is banning shops from handing out free plastic bags from June this year, in a bid to curb pollution. Production of ultra-thin plastic bags will also be banned, the State Council said in a statement. Instead, people will be encouraged to use baskets or reusable cloth bags for their shopping, the council said. The move comes amid growing concern about pollution and environmental degradation in China.

China was using huge quantities of plastic bags each year, the State Council, China's cabinet, said in its directive, posted on the main government website. "Plastic shopping bags, due to reasons such as excessive use and inefficient recycling, have caused serious energy and resources waste and environment pollution," it said. Easily discarded Of particular concern were cheap, flimsy bags that many shopkeepers routinely handed out to customers. "The super-thin bags have especially become a main source of plastic pollution as they are easy to break and thus disposed of carelessly," the statement said. Shops that violated the new rules could be fined or have their goods confiscated, it said. The council also called for greater recycling efforts from rubbish collectors, and suggested financial authorities should consider higher taxes on the production and sale of plastic bags. In recent years, China's rapid development has triggered concerns over pollution and use of resources. But correspondents say that there is a growing awareness that more needs to be done to protect the environment.

Every year, around 500 billion plastic bags are used worldwide. 500,000,000,000. Five hundred followed by nine zeros. That's a lot of bags. So many that over one million bags are being used every minute and they're damaging our environment.

Big numbers can be daunting so let's put it another way. Every man, woman and child on our planet uses 83 plastic bags every year. That's one bag per person every four and half days. Of those 500 billion bags, 100 billion are consumed in the United States alone.

Plastic bags are difficult and costly to recycle and most end up on landfill sites where they take around 300 years to photodegrade. They break down into tiny toxic particles that contaminate the soil and waterways and enter the food chain when animals accidentally ingest them. But the problems surrounding waste plastic bags starts long before they photodegrade. Our planet is becoming increasingly contaminated by our unnecessary use of plastic bags. Big black bin liners, plastic carrier bags carrying advertising logos, clear sandwich bags and a variety of other forms are all polluting our environment. They're lightweight, handy and easily discarded. Too easily discarded. While they were rarely found during the 60s and 70s, their usage has increased at an alarming rate since they became popular during the 80s. Just take a look around you. Plastic bags can be seen hanging from the branches of trees, flying in the air on windy days, settled amongst bushes and floating on rivers. They clog up gutters and drains causing water and sewage to overflow and become the breeding grounds of germs and bacteria that cause diseases.

Plastic bags are now amongst the top 12 items of debris most often found along coastlines ranging from Spitzbergen in the north to the Falklands in the south. Animals and sea creatures are hurt and killed every day by discarded plastic bags - a dead turtle with a plastic bag hanging from its mouth isn't a pleasant sight but mistaking plastic bags for food is commonplace amongst marine animals. Plastic clogs their intestines and leads to slow starvation. Others become entangled in plastic bags and drown. Because plastic bags take hundreds of years to break down, every year our seas become 'home' to more and more bags that find their way there through our sewers and waterways. Every bag that's washed down a drain during rainfall ends up in the sea - every bag that's flushed down a toilet (many small bags are), ends up in the sea - every bag that's blown into a river will most likely end up in the sea. Add to that the enormous amounts of energy that's used every year in order to manufacture these bags and it's no surprise that pressure is being put on governments to make changes and consumers to re-think their attitudes.

In the pantheon of lost causes, defending the plastic grocery bag would seem to be right up there with supporting smoking on planes or the murder of puppies. The ubiquitous thin white bag has moved squarely beyond eyesore into the realm of public nuisance, a symbol of waste and excess and the incremental destruction of nature. But where there's an industry at risk, there's an attorney, and the plastic bag's advocate in chief is Stephen L. Joseph, head of the quixotically titled Save the Plastic Bag campaign. Recently, Joseph and his cause have taken a few hits. Last Tuesday, Los Angeles became the most recent American city to take a stand against the bag, when its city council voted unanimously to ban plastic in all supermarkets and retail stores by 2010 if a statewide fee on the bags has not been put in place by then. (It's estimated that Los Angeles uses 2 billion plastic bags a year, only 5% of which are recycled.) Joseph had filed suit against Los Angeles County on the grounds that it did not prepare an Environmental Impact Report on the banning of the bags as required by California law. A month earlier, Manhattan Beach, Calif., adopted a similar ordinance, also over Joseph's objections and legal maneuvers. And last July, Joseph's home city of San Francisco became the first American metropolis to impose the ban. (Joseph has been on the case only since June, so that's not in his column.) The former Washington lobbyist, who was born in England and reluctantly gives his age as 50-something, admits it's an uphill battle trying to improve the image of a throwaway item that has been tied to everything from global warming to dependence on oil and the death of marine life. Especially in California. Particularly in ultra-liberal Marin County. It took him more than a year after the bag manufacturers came calling to take on the cause. "It's very challenging to counter the myths and misinformation," he says from his Tiburon, Calif., law offices. "I'm a one-man show." Joseph has a website, www. SaveThePlasticBag. com, which comprehensively details, among other things, how much cockroaches love paper bags. and as a lawyer, he's a pretty good publicist. in 2003 he sued Kraft Foods to prevent the sale of Oreo cookies to children under the age of 11 in California, on the grounds that they were full of trans fat. While he didn't win the court battle, he clearly won the war. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed an anti-trans-fat bill into law on July 25. Earlier, Joseph sued San Francisco's parking department to get the agency to remove graffiti from its signs, and he was an anti-litter activist. Graffiti and litter including, say, plastic shopping bags live on, so he's batting about .300. How can a former anti-litter activist support plastic bags? Joseph points out, and some environmentalists agree, that in many ways paper bags are just as bad for the environment as plastic ones. While paper bags decompose, they also release methane while doing so. While plastic bags are sometimes made with petrochemicals, paper bags require more energy to be made and recycled. The evidence that plastic bags kill marine life is not conclusive, and it's generally acknowledged that the detritus from commercial fishing is much more damaging. "My research into this issue has proved to me that something funny is going on," says Joseph. "The anti-plastic-bag campaigners are not being challenged. It's like a court case where nobody's representing the other side." Against the use of cloth shopping bags, however, or the string type his grandmother might have taken to the high street, Joseph has fewer arguments. Plastic bags make handy trash-can liners, he says, or receptacles for cat litter. And, of course, they can be reused to hold shopping. "Do you know what I think is the best thing about them? You can shove about 12 of them in your glove compartment." However persuasive his arguments, Joseph's task may be Canute-like. In June, China banned shops throughout the country from giving out free plastic bags and banned the production, sale and use of any plastic bags less than one-thousandth of an inch thick. Bhutan banned the bags on the grounds that they interfered with national happiness. Ireland has imposed a hefty 34-cent fee for each bag used. Both Uganda and Zanzibar have banned them, as have 30 villages in Alaska. Scores of countries have imposed or are considering similar measures. Joseph labors on nevertheless, undaunted by the tide or by what his Marin County neighbors must think. "I've told a lot of people that I'm trying to save the plastic bag," he says. "They look at me with horror." But he says that no, he has not seen a drop-off in dinner-party invitations. "This is not an issue that belongs in the left bucket or the right bucket. It's about truth. And I'm determined to make it register."

District of Columbia legislators are considering imposing a 5-cents-per-bag fee on plastic or paper bags at liquor stores, grocers, drug stores and other businesses. The fee would be split between businesses and the city, with the District using its share to help clean the Anacostia River and offer free reusable bags to elderly and low-income residents. Plastic bags are "the single largest component of trash" in the 8-mile Anacostia River and its tributaries, according to a recent study by the Anacostia Watershed Society.

If passed, the law would be one of the country's toughest such regulations. San Francisco is the only large city in the country that has banned plastic bags. Seattle voters will decide in August whether to approve a 20-cent fee on plastic and paper bags proposed by the Seattle City Council. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has proposed a similar 5-cent fee on plastic bags with the aim of generating millions in revenue and eventually discouraging their use (Nikita Stewart, Washington Post, Feb. 12).

Call to verify acceptable materials before visiting the drop-off location. If you have a large quantity, check with the manager for appropriate drop off procedures. Please recycle only plastic bags that are clean and dry with all receipts removed.

Stores that may accept clean, dry plastic bags from the General Public. Visit the websites or call the numbers below to find specific store locations

2007, American Chemistry Council. All rights reserved. Terms and Conditions | Privacy Policy | Administrative Log in Recycling of plastic bags and polyethylene (PE) film is not available everywhere. however, many retail stores and some municipal drop-offs in the United States collect plastic bags and polyethylene film for recycling. This web site provides the public, municipalities and businesses a means to identify retail stores and recovery facilities that collect plastic bags and film for recycling.

The indiscriminate use of plastic shopping bags is a major and visible environmental problem in Hong Kong. Our landfill survey indicates that some eight billion plastic shopping bags are disposed of at landfills every year. This translates into more than three plastic shopping bags per person per day, which apparently go beyond our needs.

To address the problem of indiscriminate use, we propose to introduce an environmental levy of 50 cents on each plastic shopping bag at the retail level, with the first phase covering chain or large supermarkets, convenience stores and personal healthy and beauty product stores. A two-month public consultation was conducted between May and July 2007 to solicit views from the public and the stakeholders on the

In July 2008. The Ordinance provides a legal basis for introducing producer responsibility schemes, with the environmental levy on plastic shopping bags as the first scheme under the Ordinance.

We are preparing the Product Eco-responsibility (Plastic Shopping Bags) Regulation (Regulation), which would further set out the implementation details of the environmental levy scheme.

Paper or plastic bags. which is better? It's an age old question, when it comes time to check out when grocery shopping. paper bag or plastic bag? It seems like it should be an easy choice, but there's an incredible number of details and inputs hidden in each bag. From durability and reusability to life cycle costs, there's a lot more to each bag than meet the eye. Let's take a look behind the bags. Where do brown paper bags come from? Paper comes from trees -- lots and lots of trees. The logging industry, influenced by companies like Weyerhaeuser and Kimberly-Clark, is huge, and the process to get that paper bag to the grocery store is long, sordid and exacts a heavy toll on the planet. First, the trees are found, marked and felled in a process that all too often involves clear-cutting, resulting in massive habitat destruction and long-term ecological damage.

I wish Whole Foods (and other stores) had gone one step further and simply banned both paper and plastic. So now I see a bunch of people leaving WF with tons of paper bags.

The main WholeFoods in Austin is "experimenting" with no bags at the checkout. You have to bring your own or buy their reusable bags. I've been using long-handled canvas totes for groceries for 5 years, since moving into an apartment with on-street parking. I can sling many canvas bags full of groceries onto my arms/shoulders and carry them all in one trip. (I'm pretty strong.) Much better than locking up the car, bringing in a load, heading back out, loading up again, etc. But it's the strength of canvas bags that is tops. I would flinch whenever I'd see the grocery store bagger put only 2 or 3 items in each plastic bag because they would rip otherwise.

I read in a SMH article that plastic bags are not so evil- bags are made from a byproduct of processing natural gas which would otherwise go to waste. they prevent all the other bits of rubbish from going everywhere and act as a stabiliser for the ground when put in landfil. Treehugger thoughts? ( )

I've started taking a couple of those lightweight Glad plastic containers(for fast food or doggie bags or donuts from the grocery store), a big cup (again for fast food or 7-11), a few strong bags (for groceries) and a few small bags (for fruit and veggies) and a small facecloth to dry my hands in the washroom. It's not difficult to do.

I think banning plastic / paper bag use at stores is not the answer. Now if municipalities, states, or countries imposed a hefty (no pun intended) tax for each paper or plastic bag used, that might be incentive enough for consumers to switch to reusable bags. Call it a garbage impact fee. Retailers and grocers are taxed for each plastic or paper bag they hand out, and they in turn charge their customers for each bag they use.

While I totally agree that the best option is to take a proper reusable bag shopping (or not use a bag if you only have a couple of items and don't really need one). I just took a look at the paper bags I have here in the kitchen (which I keep for holding composting materials), and both the Safeway and Lucky ones claim to be 35%-40% made of post consumer recycled material. How does that change those numbers above which seem to assume paper bags made entirely from new paper? Also, there are implications beyond the energy cost that need to be included in the equation too. I suspect that paper bags are more likely to be recycled than plastic ones (especially since few cities allow plastic bags to be dropped in the blue cart). The post consumer impact of a plastic bag thrown in the landfill, or left to find its way into the ocean, is much higher than a paper bag.

I've always wondered about this and could never decide what was better. Six months ago I came to Holland, and you have to buy your plastic bags here. So you're more likely to re-use your bags over and over. Which I think is the best way to go! Plus if you're on a bike, a canvas bag is much easier to hold onto!

Odessa, Texas is the place where all the old plastic bags blow to die. Everywhere you look while driving through. bags stuck to fences and tumbleweeds. It's very disturbing. I think they also collect around the oil rigs that are everywhere, too. Its very sad I think.

City of Seattle is trying to jump on the band wagon with their own twist - adding a 20 cent fee for use of each paper or plastic bags at checkout (grocery, drug store and such to start). I attended the City Council meeting last night (timely article). It was packed - mostly by supporters. The biggest concern is the impact on lower income shoppers. The City said they'll provide a reusable bag to every household and several to those with lower income levels. The few grocery/retail representatives there that I heard seemed more concerned about the administration of a "per bag" fee and asked that it be a "per transaction" fee. Interesting. I would think that okay, if the transaction fee covered the average bag use of probably 3-4 bags (including one of them being double bagged of course). One of folks I attended the meeting with estimated that her family was using over 1000 bags a year from grocery and drug stores before purchasing her 5 reusable bags. I'm really excited about this ban. I'd think the conversion rate from non-reusable bag shoppers to using reusable bags will be huge - maybe 80% within a year of implementation. And for those who are morally or otherwise against the fee. they can drive to the next city over and spend more on gas than they would the transaction fee.

Hi, It's not as far-reaching as decided in China as mentioned in this blog, but you can't get any plastic bags in the major supermarkets in Belgium. You can buy reusable bags or pliable boxes instead. Eddu

Bags.. Who would of thought that this would still be an issue? My husband I an realized the simplicity yet complexity of the problem last year and started educating schools and towns in NJ on reusable bags, recycling of plastic bags, and recovery programs. More and more we are seeing people use reusable bags in our area and we hope this habit becomes more main stream. Props for treehugger for not letting this issue fall of the table. www. goriseup. com We are more than a bag company!

Here's what I do. I get my groceries in plastic bags, but re-use them as trash bags. Saves money and on balance, I suspect it's the lesser evil from an environmental perspective too. it takes away the impact of manufacture and disposal of a) special-purpose trash bags I'd have to use otherwise, b) their packaging and c) the alternative canvas bags, which let's not forget, also have to be made and disposed of with some regularity as well.

Is it common to recycle plastic bags? Does every recycling center? I do not believe mine does in Cincinnati. I find it easier to carry paper bags onto the bus, or walk home with from the grocery store. And I have resused them before, but if my recycling center takes bags then i may switch. I like to take my canvas bag but when i am on the run i don't have one on me unless i plan ahead of time so I usually choose paper because I know that i can recycle that in my home.

OK. silly article. I like the facts behind it and most items are interesting things to know. However, the article doesn't answer the question. If you ask which is better, plastic or paper, there are 2 options. Granted, it is best to take a bag that doesn't get thrown away. However, that wasn't the question. Are plastic or paper bags more environmentally clean when the entire equation is looked at? The above still isn't conclusive. A situation should be presented to clarify the question such as, ". you forget your re-usable bag at your girlfriend's house on the way to the grocery. You don't notice until you are checking out. Should you use a plastic to carry your condoms home or use paper?".

The bag issue is only small change. If you want to make are real difference, you should concentrate on the packaging of the products - this is where the real impact on resources and landfills can be made. Plastic bags have a much smaller contribution to these problems then packaging does, but it's a lot easier to deal with.

Emily, if you are reusing your plastic bags to clean up after your dogs, aren't you basically recycling them? Win-win if you ask me. I know it's not the same, but at least the bag IS getting used twice before ending up in a landfill.

If they added a sizable tax, all of which could go towards carbon offsets, the habits of people would change quickly. We could get past this question because if everyone was charged a $1 per bag, paper or plastic, then they would start to keep bags on them the same way they keep their phone, or keys, or make up. I've been carrying items home from stores for years now, people still give me a bad look. I also have some roll up micro-thin bags that can be easily tucked away in my car or girlfriend's purse.

I'm surprised how so many people don't know about new technologies that can really help with the plastic problem of the world. There's this new additive from EPI ( where you can simply add into the plastic mixture during production of conventional plastic products (bags, bottles, trays, packaging) that will make it biodegradable. With the additive, the plastic will biodegrade 60% in 1.5-2 years in the landfill. The biodegrading process is triggered by heat, mechanical stress, moisture, light, bacteria. The additive only adds a few percent to the total production cost. This technology can really be applied to so many things and will change the world on how plastic is used and perceived. This technology is already being used all around the world.

I just got back from living in Europe for a year, and am now accustomed to bringing my own bags to the grocery store. Almost all stores in northern Europe charge a small fee for each grocery bag used at the store (banning them outright is a bit absurd and unlikely to fly in our economy), roughly 50 euro cents. The bags are more durable and people hold onto them for reuse. While Trader Joe's offers a rebate for bringing in your own bags, that strategy is less effective in the same way that organ donors are less frequent in the US versus Sweden. What do I mean? It's the opt-in versus opt-out concept. Swedes are automatically enrolled in the organ donor program unless they tick the box saying they do not wish to participate. In the US, however, Americans must opt-in (see The Paradox of Choice for more on the psychology of that). It's the same thing here. You gotta be on the more persuasive end where money talks. in this case, forcing people to pay a very slight fee instead of rewarding them with something negligible. It'll force better habits instead of encouraging the status quo. Trader Joe's and WF can start doing this, as their customers already have the right mindset, in addition to the stores having very specialized products that are often harder (or in TJ's case, impossible) to find elsewhere. The proceeds can then go to environmental causes, etc. and they can also save on plastic bag costs themselves. Furthermore, canvas bags aren't the only answer. While those are great for heavy lifting, there are also compact nylon styles (example here) that fold up into a small packet (slightly smaller than a fist) that you can throw into your workbag/purse or store in your car. I always have one of these on hand in my bag just in case I decide to go to a store on the fly. For heavy duty grocery trips, I bring along the big canvas bags as well. Additionally, recycling seems to have the same effect on consumption that sunblock has on sun overexposure. it lulls the user into thinking he/she is okay in doing what is known to be bad. Just like sunblock is not so effective at stopping skin cancer (as recently disclosed in the news), recycling doesn't wipe the slate clean for garbage production. I have a friend whose household used plastic cups and plates for every meal and threw out 2 big bags of trash a day, just because they didn't want to wash dishes and thought recycling took care of it all. But thankfully, unlike them, most people just need a slight nudge towards conservation.

Actually, plastic bags will degrade, but really slowly. Thats becouse polimer chains are very long, and microrganisms can "eat" them only from both ends. When polymers contains starch, degradation of starch cause breaking of chains, and in this way bacteries can start degradation process from multiples end, what will lead to faster decomposition. Completly biodegradable polymers, like mentioned PHA or PLA are as good as the standart ones, but, they are approx. 10x more expensive.. ( sorry for my english).>

Great post. We have been using canvas bags for years now. Once you condition yourself to pack the bags when you shop, forgetting them just doesn't seem to happen anymore. We do all our shopping at a local farmers market and pretty much everyone uses canvas bags. One thing I've noticed though is that people are still using those clear small plastic bags to put their vegetables in so some alternatives might be needed to combat this.

I live in Venice, Italy and our local supermarket has a corn based plastic bag called Mater-Bi. It degrades and can be thrown in the compost.

Here's some information I came across this morning about recycling costs for those thin supermarket plastic bags. Basically, according to this information, the cost of recycling the material is much higher than the cost of a new bag. The result is that most of them are entering landfills, or worse being blown by the wind and interfering with wildlife. Bottom line I think is use reusable bags, but if you do forget them, or don't have enough, choosing paper over plastic still seems like the wiser choice overall, even if it is worse in terms of production footprint.

I think that most people want to do the right thing to protect the environment, and when they learn how harmful using both paper and plastic is, they are more likely to REUSE cloth bags. With regard to the person who uses the plastic bags to pick up dog poop - that will MUMMIFY the dog's droppings - there are biodegradable bags that will allow the poop to biodegrade - like it's meant to do. Some suggestions. It takes 28 days to establish a new habit. So, if you forget your bags, put your groceries or other items back into your cart, and roll it out to your car. Keep a cardboard box, or hopefully, you have your bags there. The aggravation may encourage you to remember to bring the bags the next time! Remember, don't take plastic bags ANYWHERE - the pharmacy, the hardware store, etc. I also like the idea of a green tax on the plastic or other bags - when a new product comes out that doesn't hurt the environment, then the tax goes away! That tax can go towards cleaning up the environment. One of the products that I have on my website teaches children. Kids Kit To Save The World From Plastic Bags - and then THEY will remind you to take the bags that they make for you! (www. SustainableBags. NET) But change must come from us all individually.Be the change you want to see. Remember, people run companies as well - and we must continue to press business owners by calling and writing to tell them that we want them to use less packaging as well! If you buy organic food, do you really want it in a plastic package that leaches chemicals into the food? Here you are spending more money for a quality product, and degrading it with it's packaging! Also, look for all the other plastic you use in your life. disposable toothbrushes, razors, etc. Try and find the kinds where you only replace a small piece, rather than the entire item. You can get more ideas and share yours at my blog.

Over the past year I have switched from using plastic garbage bags to simply putting my trash in my leftover paper bags from Whole foods. This has not only saved me money but has also allowed me to lower my carbon footprint. Also, the paper bags are nice because they fit in my trash can and also have easy handles for taking the trash out to my apartment's big bin. I also believe that my local trash authority has a program for weeding out recyclables from the main trash supply so hopefully the bag never ends up in the landfill at all.

Interesting article and posts. Some serious misinformation in both. A reader (and the writer) mention biodegradable plastic and additives that render plastic biodegradable. There has been much debate among the scientific community about this and the State of California is very close to banning the substance. Nobody knows what really happens to the plastic once it is 'eaten up' by the microbes, and some of the claims about rapid biodegradation are false. CA has strict requirements on what can be called 'biodegradable'- time is the critical factor. There are lot's of folks out there interchanging the terms compostable and biodegradable. Be careful when evaluating and jumping to conclusions about these materials- none are the holy grail we're all looking for. Did you know there are over 8,000 patents pending for Bioplastics at the moment?! Big money in this, but nobody has found the Holy Grail yet. At my company we're looking to answer the other important questions- sustainability and carbon footprint- i. e. 'beggining of life/source of material', and 'mid-life', or 'what happens when this stuff is being produced?' As such we have found FiberStone™ paper from Natural Source Printing (.com) to be one of the most remarkable materials available as an alternative to BOTH paper and plastic. At Holiday time you'll be seeing lot's of big name retailers using FiberStone™ gift bags, wrap, labels and banners. You'll see unit carton boxes out of it as well. Do your homework folks. People are so focused on 'recyclability' and 'landfill'- where there are few answers, and should start looking at carbon footprint and natural resource depletion.

That was a whole lot of posts to wade thru! lots of good ideas now for mine --- 1. get paper bags with handles if you can find them double or even better triple them up so they will be strong! I have some that I have been using now for 7 years - if the handles come off or become loose just staple them back on -- keep them in your car, in your house at work etc. 2. "Anything Into Oil" landfills should be outlawed & all garbage should either be recycled (metals) or turned into oil by the high temperature high pressure de-polymerization process all sewage solids should also be made into oil - hello!! oil at $130.00 a barrel or more 3. no more separating plastics - they all get recycled by being turned back into oil from whence they came

The fact that a plastic bag needs more then 100 years to break down always brings me to use paper bag.

What gets me is that we all debating the paper v's plastic topic and saying that re-usable bags are the way to go. Which is strange seeing as the majority of re-usable bags (particularly the ones found in supermarkets) are made from polypropylene (aka plastic). So when our re-usable bags break or wear out we are still faced with the same issue of the bag not breaking down and it will take up so much more space in land fill than standard plastic bags.

In your description of paper recycling, you failed to mention that the pulp fibers break down into smaller fibers during the recycling process. The paper industry, more often than not, use soft wood trees to make their paper because the fibers are longer, and make a stronger paper in the end. By recycling paper, you end up with broken fibers, which equate to a weaker paper. Also, (in the US) most paper companies use tree farms, and do not destroy existing ecosystems by that very reason. Yes, at one point the land was converted into a tree farm, but then it becomes no different than any other farm land used for any other crop. There are many benefits to their using tree farms, the greatest of which are ease of acquiring virgin pulp, and knowing the conditions the trees are grown in. You also fail to mention that every paper bag that ends up in the waste stream, and ends up in a sanitary landfill, does NOT biodegrade, and therefore, takes up more space than a plastic bag following the same route. Sanitary landfills are designed to prevent bio degradation, because once capped, it would only cause instability, off-gassing, and eventual collapse of the landfill cap. I've learned all of this from my years in college, and as a packaging engineer, so I'm sorry I have no specific references to back this up. In the interest of transparency, my packaging career almost entirely depends on paper, as I am a corrugated and paperboard packaging designer, so for me to be pointing out the downfalls of paper bag usage does not benefit me. Please research these points as you see fit, and include whatever you glean from this comment in your article. The more information people have, the more informed decisions can be made.

For those of you who use a reusable canvas style bag, what do you use for your kitchen trash bags? Do you buy bio-plastic bags? Or.? I have a small kitchen trash can, which the paper bags from the market just fit into. I compost, to keep volume down. But am trying to figure out the best alternative if I go canvas. Ultimately, I don't think it's a good idea to hand carry trash to the large 30 gallon trash can, as that would then need to be washed out every so often, wasting water. Any suggestions?

Once people start using totes, they don't want to go back. I LOVE them! It makes carrying your groceries so much easier. I've even bought smaller zipper versions from Target so I can keep them in my purse. My local grocery stores now keep their tote stock at the end of the grocery line. That way if you forget your own, you can buy one for 99 cents. The only disadvantage to not using plastic bags, I 'm starting to run low on my dog's "poop" bags..)

Wow,,i should have thought of that before..but i suggest that every countrys government should have the effort to collect scattered plastic bags and recycle them.

You reached the conclusion that "canvas" bags are better without discussing how they are manufactured. What are they made of, and did you notice they are made in China--that's a lot of bag-miles. Also, paper and plastic bags can be reused too. How many times does the study assume that the paper and plastic bags are reused? Canvas bags are obviously orders of magnitude more to produce per unit since you have to buy them for $1.99 whereas paper and plastic are given out free.

There are a lot of stores in chicago that are either giving a discount for bringing your own bag or starting to charge for needing paper or plastic. either way, with everyone jumping on the bandwagon, i feel guilty when i DON'T bring my own bags. i got a goody green bag for my bday and i love it. it's the first one i've seen that is actually cute and i find myself using it as a purse sometimes. goodygreenbag. com.i want to buy myself a few more in different patterns!

Over 200 million tons of plastic are manufactured annually around the world. Of those 200 million tons, 26 million are manufactured in the U. S. The EPA reported that only 5.8% of those plastics was recycled, although this is increasing rapidly. While PHA and PLA bags are good for the environment people should know that they compete with food production. The primary feedstock is currently corn. For the U. S. to meet it's current output of plastics production with BP's (Biodegradable Polymers) it would require 1.62 square meters per kilogram produced. While this space requirement could be feasible, it is always important to consider how much impact this large scale production could have on food prices and the oppurtunity cost of using land in this fashion versus alternatives. Paper bags.the envrionmental impact here is huge, and these bags can last for over 30 years in a landfill. Why ban plastic bags when you can make them all 100% landfill biodegradable. BIOtech Products LLC of Randolph, NJ has the answer. They have patented a formula that is non toxic, contains no heavy metals, or harmful carcinogens. The methane it produces can be used as fuel and the chlorine content produced has been proved to make the surrounding area more fertile. What is my point here? Why try to beat them when you can join them? With this patented formula all you do is add it to the current plastic bag production to make them 100% landfill biodegradable. It's that simple. There is no difference in the bag except it's made GREEN!

The Plastic Bag Environmental Levy is a charge on plastic shopping bags that was introduced throughout Ireland on 4th March 2002. The charge applies at the point of sale in shops, supermarkets, service stations and all sales outlets. Retailers must pass on the full amount of the levy as a charge to customers at the checkout. The charge for your plastic shopping bag will be itemised on all invoices, receipts or dockets issued to customers.

It was estimated that some 1.2 billion plastic shopping bags were provided free of charge to customers in retail outlets annually, before the introduction of the levy. This was excessive and largely unnecessary. Plastic bags are a very visible component of litter in Ireland throughout our towns, coastlines and in the countryside. They have a negative impact on our environment and on our wildlife and their habitats. The charge is being introduced to encourage the use of reusable bags and to change people's attitudes to litter and pollution in Ireland. Revenue generated from the Plastic Bag Environmental Levy will go into the new Environmental Fund. This fund is used to support waste management, litter and other environmental initiatives.

Smaller plastic bags that are used to store fresh meat, fish and poultry, both packaged and unpackaged.

Retailers are required to comply with the law and charge for plastic bags where appropriate. If you wish to complain about a retailer who is not charging for plastic bags, you should contact the Environmental Awareness Officer, or the Waste Enforcement Officer of your local authority. You should make your complaint in writing, clearly identifying the name and address of the retailer, the instances where plastic bags being issued without charge, etc. Remember to include your own contact details so the local authority can verify your information. All information regarding your complaint is confidential and your personal details will not be passed to the retailer. Following receipt of your complaint, your local authority will send an inspector to the retailer's premises. The inspector will purchase an item and request an itemised receipt. If the plastic bag levy does not appear on the receipt the local authority has two options. They may choose to issue a warning to the retailer and a reminder about the levy. Or, they may choose to initiate legal proceedings against the retailer. It is a matter for the local authority to decide how they will proceed. Contact information for local authorities throughout Ireland is available here.

Imagine a world without plastic shopping bags. It could be the future. There is a growing international movement to ban or discourage the use of plastic bags because of their environmental effects. Countries from Ireland to Australia are cracking down on the bags and action is beginning to stir in the United States. The ubiquitous plastic shopping bag, so handy for everything from toting groceries to disposing of doggie doo, may be a victim of its own success. Although plastic bags didn't come into widespread use until the early 1980s, environmental groups estimate that 500 billion to 1 trillion of the bags are now used worldwide every year. Critics of the bags say they use up natural resources, consume energy to manufacture, create litter, choke marine life and add to landfill waste.

And plastic bags are a major part of Washington's litter problem, cluttering streets, sticking to trees and polluting water, she said, adding, It's dangerous for wildlife.

Despite the lightness of their weight, plastic bags and wrappings made up 3 percent of the volume of all litter on state roads and in state and county parks in 2000, the last year tracked by the state, according to an Ecology report. That's 283 tons of bag litter statewide.

Seattle and Bellevue are among the larger cities that collect plastic bags for recycling. In 2001 and 2002, Seattle residents recycled 287 tons of plastic packaging, said Brett Stav of Seattle Public Utilities.

But not everyone bothers to recycle, and in 2002 nearly 5,000 tons of plastic bags went to Seattle's landfill, he said.

King, Pierce and Snohomish counties do not offer plastic bag recycling to their unincorporated-area residents. Although Brooke Bascom of King County's solid waste agency blamed the market, saying there's not enough demand for recycled bags, Seattle's Stav said, China is a huge developing market.. There's not a problem with demand. The used bags are made into decking and building materials, he said.

The Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer are major contributors to the area's volume of bags. The Seattle Times Co., which handles delivery of both newspapers under a business partnership, estimates it uses 300,000 plastic bags a week -- covering roughly 10 percent of what's distributed, said Times spokeswoman Kerry Coughlin.

Every time we use a new plastic bag they go and get more petroleum from the Middle East and bring it over in tankers," said Stephanie Barger, executive director of Earth Resource Foundation in Costa Mesa, Calif. "We are extracting and destroying the Earth to use a plastic bag for 10 minutes." The foundation is calling for a 25 cent tax on plastic bags in California. A bill that would have imposed a 3 cent tax on plastic shopping bags and cups was sidelined in the California Legislature last year after heavy opposition from the retail and plastics industries. The plastics industry took a "proactive stance" by working with retailers to encourage greater recycling, rather than "putting on taxes to address the problem," said Donna Dempsey, executive director of the Film and Bag Federation, a trade association for the plastic bag industry. The tax proposals are loosely modeled on Ireland's "PlasTax," a levy of about 20 cents that retail customers have had to pay for each plastic bag since March 2002. The use of plastic bags in Ireland dropped more than 90 percent following imposition of the tax, and the government has raised millions of dollars for recycling programs. Similar legislation was introduced in Scotland last month and is being discussed for the rest of the United Kingdom. Consumers seem agreeable to giving up the bags, said Claire Wilton, senior waste campaigner at Greenpeace-UK. "There certainly hasn't been an angry uprising of shoppers (in Ireland) saying we want our bags for free," Wilton said. "I think a lot of people recognize they are wasteful. That's why they try to save them to use again, although they often forget to bring them with them when they shop." In Australia, about 90 percent of retailers have signed up with the government's voluntary program to reduce plastic bag use. A law that went into effect last year in Taiwan requires restaurants, supermarkets and convenience stores to charge customers for plastic bags and utensils. It has resulted in a 69 percent drop in use of plastic products, according to news reports. One of the key concerns is litter. In China, plastic bags blowing around the streets are called "white pollution." In South Africa, the bags are so prominent in the countryside that they have won the derisive title of "national flower." The plastics industry says the solution to bag litter is to change people, not the product. "Every piece of litter has a human face behind it. If they are a harm to the environment in terms of visual blight, then people need to stop littering," said Rob Krebs, a spokesman for the American Plastics Council. One of the most dramatic impacts is on marine life. About 100,000 whales, seals, turtles and other marine animals are killed by plastic bags each year worldwide, according to Planet Ark, an international environmental group. Last September, more than 354,000 bags -- most of them plastic -- were collected during an international cleanup of costal areas in the United States and 100 other countries, according to the Ocean Conservancy. The bags were the fifth most common item of debris found on beaches. CRACKING DOWN Some countries are cracking down on the use of plastic bags. Here's a look at the issue.

About 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are used worldwide every year, according to Vincent Cobb, founder of reuseablebags. com.

Countries that have banned or taken action to discourage the use of plastic bags include Australia, Bangladesh, Ireland, Italy, South Africa and Taiwan. Mumbai (formerly Bombay), India, also has banned the bags.

Plastic industry trade associations were unable to provide estimates of plastic bag use in the United States. However, based on studies of plastic bag use in other nations, the environmental group Californians Against Waste estimates Americans use 84 billion plastic bags annually.

The first plastic sandwich bags were introduced in 1957. Department stores started using plastic bags in the late 1970s and supermarket chains introduced the bags in the early 1980s.

The Environment, biodegradable plastic bags, Matt Ransford, plastic bags, plastics, pollution, toxins

Polylactic acid is a polyester derived from corn starch which decomposes and mineralizes into water and carbon dioxide when composted. It's already being used in some brands of compostable "plastic" bags. The team is working to blend the acid with other bio- and oil-based polymers to find the right kinds of resins for commercial use. They're also looking at repurposing waste materials resulting from biodiesel refinement—anything that can be culled from renewable sources. Whether this is a long-term solution remains to be seen. Via PhysOrg

Once again, self-proclaimed "environmentalists" prescribe a "cure" that makes everything far, far worse. Here's what an article in Britain's (very left-wing) "The Guardian" newspaper says. "The substitutes can increase emissions of greenhouse gases on landfill sites, some need high temperatures to decompose and others cannot be recycled in Britain. Many of the bioplastics are also contributing to the global food crisis by taking over large areas of land previously used to grow crops for human consumption." More here.

The plastic bag thing is rift with issues - there are so many 'altenatives' out there that it is hard to know exactly what the impact might be. It is undoubtedly the case that replacing disposable oil based plastic bags with disposable starch based bags would put pressure on food production. However, there are bags on the market that avoid these issues, for example by utilising non-food quality streams (such as substandard or brownfield corn, or my personal favorite, potato starch from the peel as a waste product from chip and crisp factories). There is a lot of very poor marketing from companies trying to push plastic bags as degradable/biodegradable and these do cause problems, as the guardian article tundraesa quotes points out, but the increasingly widely accepted standard is compostable not biodegradable - to European Standard EN13432 or US Standard ASTM D6400. More to the point, however, is that shops that go 'plastic bag free' (that will usually offer a compostable bag alternatve for a nominal charge) tend to see a drop in usage of between 90 - 95 % (this bears out on my local highstreet which is in the process of going plastic bag free). Reduce, Reuse, Recycle - it is in that order for a reason!

I truly don't understand how one can label anyone interested in improving and preserving our environment as a 'crazy liberal' or 'hippie.' The point of the article is that we don't have to use petroleum based products in order to enjoy the conveniences that plastics provide. Any sort of starch will do to construct biodegradable bags. Corn is just an example. Personally, I'm not a big fan of using food grade materials to make things for other uses..ethanol or bags. Grasses or even potato peels(as another user pointed out) would work as well. Also, anything decomposing emits some heat, that's unavoidable. And yes, they do put out greenhouse gases while decomposing. However, the alternative of countless tons of plastics degrading into microscopic toxins affecting all life on earth(including humans as it goes up the food chain) seems to be a bad alternative. And manufacturing plastics from fossil fuels isn't exactly an emissions free process.to say the least. As for the land issue, there is only so much arable land and we need to preserve some of it in it's natural state for our own health, if nothing else. Forested land regulates our weather, cleans our air and purifies our water. So, no, we can't just convert it all into farmland, we have to use our resources wisely and conserve. Human population is a huge problem. No, people won't stop having children, but they are having less in most developed nations. Europe's population is actually declining. If the world population doesn't slow and descend at some point we *will* run out of resources and that would be very ugly. If everyone currently on the planet lived and consumed like an American.we'd need a few more planets. Not saying I don't enjoy and appreciate my standard of living, but we might want to think about the numbers a little more.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg proposed a 5-cent fee on new plastic bags at the store register last week. While that figure was a penny lower than the 6 cents per bag proposed in November, another figure tucked on Page 34 of the 59-slide presentation [pdf] was a real eye-opener. The projected revenue for this user fee was $84 million a sharp increase from the last figure floated, just $16 million. Other estimates suggested the revenue would rise to $144 million by 2011 and $124 million in 2012. How did these numbers get so high?

Two things are happening, according to the mayors office. First, the scope of the proposed tax which would require approval from the State Legislature in Albany has been expanded beyond grocery stores. It would include bags given out by department stores, restaurants and other retailers. Its not just your local bodega, said Jason Post, a spokesman for the mayor. Its going to be your candy shop, your Macys. In addition, he said, the revenue estimate increased because the Department of Sanitation went back and looked at the waste stream more closely and found that there are far more plastic bags used in the city than we first thought. Still, the estimates were surprisingly aggressive. A $144 million estimate, at 5 cents a bag, means that 2.88 billion plastic bags would be used by New Yorkers each year, even with the fee. Past estimates put that figure at one billion new plastic bags. That breaks down to one bag for every man, woman and child in New York City every single day of the year. The site Reusablebags. com estimates that 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed annually around the globe. Do New Yorkers alone really consume more than 1 out every 300 plastic bags in the world? Though originally called a fee (which would only require City Council approval), the citys top budget official said it would be considered a tax (which, like the $900 million increase in the city’s sales tax, would require approval from Albany). The plan seems very likely to invite debate and discourse, as foot-bound New Yorkers seem unhappy at the prospect of carrying their own bags around to avoid the charges. But if the proposal passes, New York City would be following the lead of many European municipalities, and it would become one of the first places in the United States to assess a plastic bag tax. (Since 2007, San Francisco has simply banned plastic bags at the grocery store.) Some have noted that environmental equation on reusable versus disposable bags is not so clear-cut. The more durable bags require an order of magnitude of more energy to produce. The anti-plastic campaign has drawn a sharp defense from the American Chemistry Council (every product has a constituency). The council argues that a drop in disposable plastic bags means an uptick in the purchase and use of other bags, like garbage bags, since plastic is still needed for trash and pet waste. The council has enumerated what it calls plastic bag myths. In theory, disposable plastic bags can be recycled. But few are, despite a City Council bill that required large stores and chains to do so. Advocacy groups argue that each high-quality reusable shopping bag has the potential to eliminate hundreds, if not thousands, of plastic bags over its lifetime. Part of the purpose of the fee is to deter people from using the bags, Mr. Post said. Weve baked into this, that the plastic bag consumption is going to fall. That is why the revenue estimate dips $144 million to $124 million in 2012. But will bag consumption drop just 14 percent from year to year? After all, just a few weeks after Ireland adopted a 33-cent charge on plastic bags in 2002, plastic bag use decreased by 94 percent. Plastic bag use is not simply an issue of finances, but also public shame. Of course, 33 cents per bag is a bigger disincentive. Mr. Post said the mayors office is comfortable with its figures. That is our projection, he said. Could it be wrong? It certainly could.

Smug singletons. eaters-out. just plain eco-conscious folks who generate v little wasteNYC is awash in such people. We use plastic grocery bags to put out our (tiny amts of) garbage instead of the big white/black garbage bags others buy. re- and reuse plastic bags to carry all manner of things (groceries next week, lunch, books, clothes to laundromat/drycleaner). Were destitute enough with our meagre single (if still employed) incomes, rubbish studios, and wavering social/marital prospects (please god that Second Income)now WE have to PAY for the bags? Just to subsidize all the wasteful wankers? Lets just RECYCLE PLASTIC BAGS!

Wouldnt surprise me at all to see, on average, a plastic bag used by every person in New York daily. A couple days worth of groceries is easily 2 or 3 bagsthats 4 or 6, given that double-bagging is a given at the grocery store. Go into CVS to pick up a last-minute item? Thats a bag. Get Chinese delivered? Get batteries or a box of pencils or a shirt? Another bag. Seriously, you can easily rack up a dozen bags in half a day of errands. Not to mention the NY Times delivers their paper wrapped in a plastic bag. If you want to see how many plastic bags you use, stop throwing them out. Trust me, within a couple weeks, youll be begging people not to put purchases in a plastic bag. Its unbelievable how these things pile up.

A five cent tax you say? If I had a nickel for every plastic bag that has blown onto my front lawn or gotten tangled high up in the tree in front of my house, I could retire a wealthy man.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg proposed a 5-cent fee on new plastic bags at the store register last week. And how much does he suggest we pay for old bags?

I think the plastic bag tax is great, it would help me and (Im sure) many of my fellow New Yorkers) to grab one of their many recyclable bags BEFORE leaving their apartments to shop. And while were thinking of ways to fill our citys coffers, howsa about revisiting and enforcing litter laws/tickets for not picking up after oneself? Parking police could double up and hand out litterbug tickets as easily as they hand out ones for illegal parking?

Plastic bags can only be recycled once and when they get recycled its not into more bags! Most recycled plastic bags are turned to plastic deck boards and other plastic construction material. And although they enjoy a much longer second life when its over they go to the land fill. I cant help but beg the question, what did people do before there was free plastic bags everywhere?

The city wont collect even a quarter of what they plan. First, people will use substitutes including paper bags. You have to reaize paper manufacture is an extremely energy intensive operation. For anyone who has seen the inside of a paper mill, a pulp slurry is deposited in large rollers, the squeezed and dried in huge gas fired heaters that blow hot, dry air on it until dry. From a wet slurry to crisp paper it takes only seconds and uses gobs of energy,. Bag papers (Kraft) cousin, newsprint saw its price skyrocket last year, despite dwindling demand because of far higher energy costs. Ask your publisher about it. Taxing plastic bags under the guise of the ecology is a phoney. It is simply cover for another nuisance tax that New Yorkers will have to pay.

Get over it, people. Using your own bags instead of getting plastic bags everywhere you go is not that difficult. Of course you wont always have a bag on you when you pop into a store, but 5 cents is such a nominal fee. I love this comment. Next thing you know he will be adding stop light cameras to raise revenues. And why not? Why is it such an impossible demand that people pay for transgressions, particularly running red lights? Hell yeah, install cameras and fine people who break the law. Plastic bags have their own impact and doing something to encourage people to be more aware of their consumption is a solid, thoughtful idea. Providing much-needed revenue for the city is icing on the cake. Its unfortunate that people dont see the connection between city revenues and the citys ability to provide valuable services to its residents. That is the point of taxes.

If the goal truly is to reduce or eliminate consumption of plastic bags for the sake of the environment, a 5-cent per bag fee isnt going to cut it, as well the Mayor knows. Perhaps however 33 cents per bag is too big a disincentive. if consumption decreases by 94% here as in Ireland, the projected revenue goals will not be reached. Better to ban these bags outright, or impose a more rigorous schedule, than tax them in such a way as to insure their continued use.

>What did people do before free plastic bags? Free paper bags, which are biodegradable, and if something leaks, theyll biodegrade before your eyes, spilling your groceries all over the ground.

About time I say. This is great news for the NYC environment. No to plastic bags. Its time to start caring not just about your apartment, but also about your city and country (and planet).

I think this is wonderful. How much of an inconvenience can it be people, to carry around even ONE plastic bag at all times?! Give me a break. I carry three Baggu bags at all timesthey fold up nicely. so I never have to ask for a bag at any store. In addition, for those who used to use the store plastic bags for their own garbage or pet waste, theres no reason you cant continue to do that. Paying 5 cents per bag is considerably cheaper than if you were to BUY a box of trash bags. So in the long run, we will still hopefully lessen the waste of plastic bags, and at the same time gain revenue for the city. Everytime you buy something at the corner store, the drugstore, lunch takeout etc. EVERY vendor immediately puts it into a plastic bag. Theres no WAY your average NYer can find a use for the two average plastic bags they are given per day by vendors. So you will DEFINTELY be saving on plastic waste, if you just carry your own bag around with you 24/7, and then any and all purchases get dumped into that one bag. Only if you need an additional bag on any given day would you then accept another bag from a vendor. But with my three Baggu bags, its extremely rare now that I ever have to accept a bag from a vendor. In my small Queens neighborhood (where people seem to be less environmentally conscious), the bodega guys look at me like I have two heads, because I never will accept the plastic bag that they so eagerly want to give me with my purchase!.-)

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You step up to the register, the cashier asks if you've found everything ok and then hits you with the inevitable question. Paper or plastic? We hope that the answer would be "no thanks - I brought my own!" Let's just pretend that it's one of those rare days when you're caught without your reusable bags (it's ok - we're human too) and you have to choose - will it be paper or plastic? How do you decide? We realize this is a hotly debated topic and our goal is to simply point out the pros and cons of each option. Let's face it - paper and plastic are both taxing to the environment. Once you've read the information below, we hope you'll feel more confident in your decision. The Plastic Bag - a bit of history These days, most plastic bags are made from a type of plastic called polyethylene. 80% of polyethylene is produced from natural gas - an abundant, yet non-renewable resource. Polyethylene, as a raw material, can be manipulated into any shape, size, form or color. It's watertight and can be made UV resistant. Anything can be printed on it and it can be reused many, many times. In many cases, it can be recycled but is not considered "cradle to cradle" meaning it cannot be recycled over and over or return to an organic state. According to a timeline published by plasticsindustry. org, the first plastic bags were baggies and sandwich bags on a roll introduced in 1957. The industry continued to grow and between us. retail giants such as Sears, J. C. Penney, Federated and Allied adopted plastic bags for store merchandise. When did the plastic grocery bag hit the market? That would be 1977 - the year Jimmy Carter was sworn in as our 39th President, Star Wars hit the theatre and Apple Computer was incorporated. In 1996 it was estimated that 4 out of 5 grocery bags used were plastic. Where does plastic go when thrown away? 2005 EPA research shows that approximately 5.2% of plastic bags are recycled. We were a tad disappointed to hear that number too. On the bright side, the number of pounds of plastic bags recovered according to plasticbagrecycling. org is a 24% increase in 2006 over that of 2005. This is based on a report produced by the American Chemistry Council. So, while the overall number is abysmally small, it is on the rise. Plastic bags can be melted and reformed into products such as plastic lumber used on decks, fence material, park benches and other industrial and residential goods. Please note that not all plastic bags can be recycled - these simply end up in the landfill. So, where does the other 94.8% go? They end up in your local landfill. How long till they break down? No one really knows but we can speculate. The SPI openly admits on its website that most plastics don't biodegrade - that's the process of breaking down completely into organic material which is then assimilated back into the soil. Most plastic will photo-degrade meaning over time, and when exposed to the ultraviolet rays from sunlight, the plastic material's chemical "chain" starts to break down resulting in microscopic particles that mix in with the soil (more on this later). How long that process takes is not clear. Plastic's Impact. Plastic, in any form, has only been around a little more than half a century. Even the most conservative scientists believe it will take a least several hundred years for plastic to photo-degrade when exposed to the correct conditions. We've heard the range debated somewhere between us. years. Whatever the number, plastic experts agree that it's a long, long time and we have not had any first hand evidence of its decomposition. Most likely, every single piece of plastic created is still here on this planet. That's a lot of plastic. Let's take a quick look at the energy consumed and pollution potential of the plastic bag. According to Boustead Consulting & Assoc Ltd who produced a recent report for the Progressive Bag Alliance, polyethylene uses less energy, oil and water (potable) than paper bags made with 30% recycled fibers. Their study also shows that plastic grocery bags emit fewer greenhouse gases and less solid waste. This report also admits that reusable bags may be the preferred alternative (see, told ya!) but points out that most people don't remember to bring them. Ahhh….that may be true but we believe that people are smarter than that and when they understand the value associated with bringing their own bags, they'll remember. But we digress if you would like to read the full report (including all of the scientific data) click here. Plastic not being recycled can be burned yielding roughly 10,000 to 20,000 btu per pound, most of which can be used to create electricity. This can help to reduce the overall sulfur emissions from coal. The burning of plastics has its cons. Inks and additives found in plastic can create dioxins when burned as well as emit heavy metals though the industry claims that more and more manufacturers use water based inks. The ash itself is toxic and needs to be disposed of in toxic waste dumps. Does this use justify the continued consumption of limited natural resources? Plastic also impacts the environment through landfills. Plastic does not readily degrade in a landfill - your yogurt container will be there for centuries. Biodegradable plastic is really non-existent. What happens here is that wood fibers are mixed with plastic fibers to create a "biodegradable" plastic. When the bag is disposed of, the wood fibers break down leaving millions of tiny plastic pieces to mix in the soil. There are newer, compostable plastics derived from plant material on the market but those are not the focus of this piece. We take issue with these microscopic particles that mix in with the soil. One could argue that we wouldn't know they were there and that they wouldn't affect the growth of plants. Fair enough. Personally, we hold the belief that healthy soil equals healthy food and plastic in the mix seems to go against nature. However, our greatest concern is the potential effect on animals and aquatic life who can't discern between digestible particles and these microscopic plastic bits that their systems do not accept as food. These particles will either poison animals and aquatic life or become part of their system that is ingested by larger prey, so on and so forth, until it may very well end up on your dinner plate or at the local sushi bar. We'll pass, thank you very much. An argument can be made that plastic decreases landfill mass. Plastics as a whole make up 18% of waste by volume and 7% by weight (plastic bags themselves are light and take up very little space). If plastic were to be replaced by other materials, trash weight would increase by 150%, packaging would weigh 300% more and energy consumed by the industry would increase by 100%. Plastic has other benefits. Reduction in aircraft weight saves an average of 10,000 gallons of fuel per plane, per year. Since 1970, plastic has played an important role in increasing automobile fuel economy as they decrease the overall weight of a vehicle. Then again, plastic bags are a significant source of litter all over the world. Unlike a paper bag that will biodegrade relatively quickly exposed to the elements, the lowly plastic bag will simply soar with the wind until it becomes entangled in a tree or lands in your flower bed. Nice. The Origin of Paper Bags. Paper comes from trees - and lots of them. The paper grocery bag is an American innovation and was designed in 1883. It's made from kraft paper - the word 'kraft' coming from the German language meaning 'strong'. Kraft paper is known for its strength and course texture. Its strength lends to its reusability. According to the American Forest & Paper Association, 2007 marked an all-time high of 56% for the recycling of paper consumed in the US. While we applaud the consumer and the industry for reaching this goal and beyond (the industries goal is 60% by 2012) we'd like to point out that the manufacturing of paper products, like plastic, consumes natural resources and creates pollution. As a matter of fact, the production of a paper bag consumes 1 gallon of water (yep, per bag) equating to 50 times that of plastic bags. Yikes! How does a paper bag get from forest to grocery store? Trees are found, marked and felled. Machinery is then used to remove the logs from the forest floor- whether it by logging trucks or, in more remote areas, helicopters. Machinery requires fossil fuel and roads (which destroys habitat) thereby creating stress on the forests' inhabitants (Even logging a small area has a large impact on the entire ecological chain in surrounding areas). Trees must dry at least three years before they can be used. Machinery is used to strip the bark, which is then chipped into one-inch squares and cooked under tremendous heat and pressure. This wood stew is then "digested" with a limestone and sulfurous acid for eight hours. The steam and moisture is vented to the outside atmosphere, and the original wood becomes pulp. It takes approximately three tons of wood chips to make one ton of pulp. The pulp is then washed and bleached, both stages requiring thousands of gallons of clean water. Coloring is added to more water, and is then combined in a ratio of 1 part pulp to 400 parts water to make paper. The pulp/water mixture is dumped into a web of bronze wires, the water showers through, leaving the pulp, which, in turn, is rolled into paper. Whew! That's just to make the paper. We must include all of the chemicals, electricity, and fossil fuels used in the shipment of this raw material and in the production and shipment of a finished paper bag. Where does a paper bag end its useful life? Paper, when thrown away, can either be recycled or end up in the landfill. If it ends up in the landfill, over time (and usually many, many years) it will break down into organic material. It can be also recycled in your yard (used as weed barrier) and it will break down much faster. If it ends up in the recycling center, the following process occurs. The paper must be returned to pulp. This is done by the use of several different chemicals including sodium hydroxide, hydrogen peroxide, and sodium silicate. These chemicals bleach and spread out the pulp fibers. These fibers are then run through cleaning and screening sequences that remove any contaminants. The pulp must then be washed with clean water to remove ink particles that were removed from the paper by the chemical process. Flotation is a common method to remove ink. The pulp is submerged in clean water and heated. The ink attaches to air bubbles, which must then be removed before they break and let the ink float back to the pulp. Most recycling centers treat the water they use to remove contaminants. Screens and mechanical cleaners are the typical methods used. Another, more environmentally friendly method is called 'sludge handling'. Sludge is composed of water, inks, pigments and small particles of waste. The materials are separated and cleaned. By including this process, it reduces any waste that may have to be taken to the landfill. These waste materials can be used in bricks, fertilizers and other useful products. Other uses for paper bags. If well packed a single grocery size paper bag can hold the same volume of up to 4 plastic bags. Reuse them as trash can liners and for craft projects. They also make great weed barriers (put down over weeds and cover with mulch) and eventually break down and naturally compost. It's also important to note that paper bags can be composted (provided they don't have a lot of printing on them). You can throw them straight into the compost pile (in small pieces for best results), or fill with yard waste. Simply pitch the whole bag, green waste and all, into the compost pile. Conclusion. Both paper and plastic bags consume large amounts of natural resources and the majority will eventually end up in the landfill. Both bags can be recycled to some extent and can be utilized around the house. We've read several studies comparing the two choices and none of them agree. Some feel plastic is the better overall choice, others paper. It's really tough to say. Paper may consume more resources to produce, however, it is also more recyclable than plastic if you include the fact that paper can be composted and plastic bags cannot. In our opinion, neither one is the winner. The best choice overall, is a reusable bag. They're made from renewable resources, take minimal energy, are light, durable (some of ours hold up to 40 lbs) and last for years. Most can be machine-washed and are great to keep in the trunk of the car. Use them at the beach, farmers market and, of course, supermarket. Plus, many supermarkets will give you up to 5 cents per bag credit. Typically, a bag will pay for itself in a year and a half if you buy groceries once a week. Many countries and here in the US, cities are beginning to ban plastic bags or are beginning to charge customers for every bag at checkout. This makes the use of reusable bags an even smarter choice. Taking all the above information into consideration, feel confident that you are making an informed decision the next time you're at the supermarket. The most important thing to remember is to utilize every possible use for both the plastic and paper bags to lengthen their life and minimize the impact on both the environment and our natural resources. (updated, January 2009)

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You step up to the register, the cashier asks if you've found everything ok and then hits you with the inevitable question. Paper or plastic? We hope that the answer would be "no thanks - I brought my own!" Let's just pretend that it's one of those rare days when you're caught without your reusable bags (it's ok - we're human too) and you have to choose - will it be paper or plastic? How do you decide? We realize this is a hotly debated topic and our goal is to simply point out the pros and cons of each option. Let's face it - paper and plastic are both taxing to the environment. Once you've read the information below, we hope you'll feel more confident in your decision. The Plastic Bag - a bit of history These days, most plastic bags are made from a type of plastic called polyethylene. 80% of polyethylene is produced from natural gas - an abundant, yet non-renewable resource. Polyethylene, as a raw material, can be manipulated into any shape, size, form or color. It's watertight and can be made UV resistant. Anything can be printed on it and it can be reused many, many times. In many cases, it can be recycled but is not considered "cradle to cradle" meaning it cannot be recycled over and over or return to an organic state. According to a timeline published by plasticsindustry. org, the first plastic bags were baggies and sandwich bags on a roll introduced in 1957. The industry continued to grow and between us. retail giants such as Sears, J. C. Penney, Federated and Allied adopted plastic bags for store merchandise. When did the plastic grocery bag hit the market? That would be 1977 - the year Jimmy Carter was sworn in as our 39th President, Star Wars hit the theatre and Apple Computer was incorporated. In 1996 it was estimated that 4 out of 5 grocery bags used were plastic. Where does plastic go when thrown away? 2005 EPA research shows that approximately 5.2% of plastic bags are recycled. We were a tad disappointed to hear that number too. On the bright side, the number of pounds of plastic bags recovered according to plasticbagrecycling. org is a 24% increase in 2006 over that of 2005. This is based on a report produced by the American Chemistry Council. So, while the overall number is abysmally small, it is on the rise. Plastic bags can be melted and reformed into products such as plastic lumber used on decks, fence material, park benches and other industrial and residential goods. Please note that not all plastic bags can be recycled - these simply end up in the landfill. So, where does the other 94.8% go? They end up in your local landfill. How long till they break down? No one really knows but we can speculate. The SPI openly admits on its website that most plastics don't biodegrade - that's the process of breaking down completely into organic material which is then assimilated back into the soil. Most plastic will photo-degrade meaning over time, and when exposed to the ultraviolet rays from sunlight, the plastic material's chemical "chain" starts to break down resulting in microscopic particles that mix in with the soil (more on this later). How long that process takes is not clear. Plastic's Impact. Plastic, in any form, has only been around a little more than half a century. Even the most conservative scientists believe it will take a least several hundred years for plastic to photo-degrade when exposed to the correct conditions. We've heard the range debated somewhere between us. years. Whatever the number, plastic experts agree that it's a long, long time and we have not had any first hand evidence of its decomposition. Most likely, every single piece of plastic created is still here on this planet. That's a lot of plastic. Let's take a quick look at the energy consumed and pollution potential of the plastic bag. According to Boustead Consulting & Assoc Ltd who produced a recent report for the Progressive Bag Alliance, polyethylene uses less energy, oil and water (potable) than paper bags made with 30% recycled fibers. Their study also shows that plastic grocery bags emit fewer greenhouse gases and less solid waste. This report also admits that reusable bags may be the preferred alternative (see, told ya!) but points out that most people don't remember to bring them. Ahhh….that may be true but we believe that people are smarter than that and when they understand the value associated with bringing their own bags, they'll remember. But we digress if you would like to read the full report (including all of the scientific data) click here. Plastic not being recycled can be burned yielding roughly 10,000 to 20,000 btu per pound, most of which can be used to create electricity. This can help to reduce the overall sulfur emissions from coal. The burning of plastics has its cons. Inks and additives found in plastic can create dioxins when burned as well as emit heavy metals though the industry claims that more and more manufacturers use water based inks. The ash itself is toxic and needs to be disposed of in toxic waste dumps. Does this use justify the continued consumption of limited natural resources? Plastic also impacts the environment through landfills. Plastic does not readily degrade in a landfill - your yogurt container will be there for centuries. Biodegradable plastic is really non-existent. What happens here is that wood fibers are mixed with plastic fibers to create a "biodegradable" plastic. When the bag is disposed of, the wood fibers break down leaving millions of tiny plastic pieces to mix in the soil. There are newer, compostable plastics derived from plant material on the market but those are not the focus of this piece. We take issue with these microscopic particles that mix in with the soil. One could argue that we wouldn't know they were there and that they wouldn't affect the growth of plants. Fair enough. Personally, we hold the belief that healthy soil equals healthy food and plastic in the mix seems to go against nature. However, our greatest concern is the potential effect on animals and aquatic life who can't discern between digestible particles and these microscopic plastic bits that their systems do not accept as food. These particles will either poison animals and aquatic life or become part of their system that is ingested by larger prey, so on and so forth, until it may very well end up on your dinner plate or at the local sushi bar. We'll pass, thank you very much. An argument can be made that plastic decreases landfill mass. Plastics as a whole make up 18% of waste by volume and 7% by weight (plastic bags themselves are light and take up very little space). If plastic were to be replaced by other materials, trash weight would increase by 150%, packaging would weigh 300% more and energy consumed by the industry would increase by 100%. Plastic has other benefits. Reduction in aircraft weight saves an average of 10,000 gallons of fuel per plane, per year. Since 1970, plastic has played an important role in increasing automobile fuel economy as they decrease the overall weight of a vehicle. Then again, plastic bags are a significant source of litter all over the world. Unlike a paper bag that will biodegrade relatively quickly exposed to the elements, the lowly plastic bag will simply soar with the wind until it becomes entangled in a tree or lands in your flower bed. Nice. The Origin of Paper Bags. Paper comes from trees - and lots of them. The paper grocery bag is an American innovation and was designed in 1883. It's made from kraft paper - the word 'kraft' coming from the German language meaning 'strong'. Kraft paper is known for its strength and course texture. Its strength lends to its reusability. According to the American Forest & Paper Association, 2007 marked an all-time high of 56% for the recycling of paper consumed in the US. While we applaud the consumer and the industry for reaching this goal and beyond (the industries goal is 60% by 2012) we'd like to point out that the manufacturing of paper products, like plastic, consumes natural resources and creates pollution. As a matter of fact, the production of a paper bag consumes 1 gallon of water (yep, per bag) equating to 50 times that of plastic bags. Yikes! How does a paper bag get from forest to grocery store? Trees are found, marked and felled. Machinery is then used to remove the logs from the forest floor- whether it by logging trucks or, in more remote areas, helicopters. Machinery requires fossil fuel and roads (which destroys habitat) thereby creating stress on the forests' inhabitants (Even logging a small area has a large impact on the entire ecological chain in surrounding areas). Trees must dry at least three years before they can be used. Machinery is used to strip the bark, which is then chipped into one-inch squares and cooked under tremendous heat and pressure. This wood stew is then "digested" with a limestone and sulfurous acid for eight hours. The steam and moisture is vented to the outside atmosphere, and the original wood becomes pulp. It takes approximately three tons of wood chips to make one ton of pulp. The pulp is then washed and bleached, both stages requiring thousands of gallons of clean water. Coloring is added to more water, and is then combined in a ratio of 1 part pulp to 400 parts water to make paper. The pulp/water mixture is dumped into a web of bronze wires, the water showers through, leaving the pulp, which, in turn, is rolled into paper. Whew! That's just to make the paper. We must include all of the chemicals, electricity, and fossil fuels used in the shipment of this raw material and in the production and shipment of a finished paper bag. Where does a paper bag end its useful life? Paper, when thrown away, can either be recycled or end up in the landfill. If it ends up in the landfill, over time (and usually many, many years) it will break down into organic material. It can be also recycled in your yard (used as weed barrier) and it will break down much faster. If it ends up in the recycling center, the following process occurs. The paper must be returned to pulp. This is done by the use of several different chemicals including sodium hydroxide, hydrogen peroxide, and sodium silicate. These chemicals bleach and spread out the pulp fibers. These fibers are then run through cleaning and screening sequences that remove any contaminants. The pulp must then be washed with clean water to remove ink particles that were removed from the paper by the chemical process. Flotation is a common method to remove ink. The pulp is submerged in clean water and heated. The ink attaches to air bubbles, which must then be removed before they break and let the ink float back to the pulp. Most recycling centers treat the water they use to remove contaminants. Screens and mechanical cleaners are the typical methods used. Another, more environmentally friendly method is called 'sludge handling'. Sludge is composed of water, inks, pigments and small particles of waste. The materials are separated and cleaned. By including this process, it reduces any waste that may have to be taken to the landfill. These waste materials can be used in bricks, fertilizers and other useful products. Other uses for paper bags. If well packed a single grocery size paper bag can hold the same volume of up to 4 plastic bags. Reuse them as trash can liners and for craft projects. They also make great weed barriers (put down over weeds and cover with mulch) and eventually break down and naturally compost. It's also important to note that paper bags can be composted (provided they don't have a lot of printing on them). You can throw them straight into the compost pile (in small pieces for best results), or fill with yard waste. Simply pitch the whole bag, green waste and all, into the compost pile. Conclusion. Both paper and plastic bags consume large amounts of natural resources and the majority will eventually end up in the landfill. Both bags can be recycled to some extent and can be utilized around the house. We've read several studies comparing the two choices and none of them agree. Some feel plastic is the better overall choice, others paper. It's really tough to say. Paper may consume more resources to produce, however, it is also more recyclable than plastic if you include the fact that paper can be composted and plastic bags cannot. In our opinion, neither one is the winner. The best choice overall, is a reusable bag. They're made from renewable resources, take minimal energy, are light, durable (some of ours hold up to 40 lbs) and last for years. Most can be machine-washed and are great to keep in the trunk of the car. Use them at the beach, farmers market and, of course, supermarket. Plus, many supermarkets will give you up to 5 cents per bag credit. Typically, a bag will pay for itself in a year and a half if you buy groceries once a week. Many countries and here in the US, cities are beginning to ban plastic bags or are beginning to charge customers for every bag at checkout. This makes the use of reusable bags an even smarter choice. Taking all the above information into consideration, feel confident that you are making an informed decision the next time you're at the supermarket. The most important thing to remember is to utilize every possible use for both the plastic and paper bags to lengthen their life and minimize the impact on both the environment and our natural resources. (updated, January 2009)

REALITY. San Francisco is the only significant jurisdiction in the nation that currently bans plastic bags and that law has caused a shift back to paper bags. Switching back to paper bags increases greenhouse gas emissions, energy use and waste.

As other major cities like New York and Chicago investigate the plastic bag issue, they have chosen plastic bag recycling for their communities. Communities wishing to emulate San Francisco should also understand that San Francisco is one of a handful of communities in the country that has collection of compostable materials including biodegradable plastic bags which was a stated intent of the San Francisco legislation.

REALITY. In the United States, nearly 80% of the raw material used to make plastic bags is produced from North American natural gas, not oil.

This includes feedstock, process and transportation energy. Much of the energy used to make plastic bags is embodied in the bag itself, and since plastic bags are fully recyclable, that energy is available for new products. Alternatives also use twice as much energy to make – thus banning plastic bags would increase overall energy use and perhaps oil use.

REALITY. In effect, banning recyclable plastic bags will not significantly reduce litter or the amount of waste in our sewers and landfills. Litter problems must be addressed directly by targeting littering and providing recycling and waste bins. Banning a certain product will only cause a switch from one form of litter to another. There is no such thing as environmentally preferable litter. Such approaches merely create new problems.

REALITY. Nationwide, the prevailing legislative trend is overwhelmingly toward plastic bag recycling. From coast to coast – Los Angeles to New York and now Chicago – cities are moving forward to promote plastic bag recycling. San Francisco remains the only city in the nation that currently enforces a ban on plastic bags. Plastic grocery bags are fully recyclable and the number of recycling programs is increasing daily. In 2006, plastic bag recycling increased 24% nationwide to 812 million pounds. There is a growing realization that plastic is a valuable resource.

Plastic bags can be made into dozens of useful new products, such as building and construction products, low-maintenance fencing and decking, and of course, new bags. There is high demand for this material, and in most areas, demand exceeds the available supply because many consumers are not aware that collection programs are available at local stores. In recent years, many grocers and retailers have introduced plastic bag collection programs. Consumers should look for a collection bin, usually located at the front of the store. The number of municipal drop-off centers and curbside programs to recycle plastic bags is increasing also.

Moore Recycling Associates, Inc. and American Chemistry Council, 2006 National Post-Consumer Recycled Plastic Bag and Film Report, 2007

In a recent survey, respondents consider 56%* of theirplastic shopping bags handed outby supermarkets were unnecessary and 80%* ofNew Zealandshoppers believe that supermarkets could do more to reduce the numbers of plastic bagsthey give out.

* Kiwi PlasticBag Concern Research. February 2007 click here to download. Despite the fact that plastic bags make up a small proportion of the waste stream they are nevertheless an environmental concern and can also be held up as a waste reduction icon to consumers.

Until we noticed the dumps filling up, most of us never thought about the stream of plastics flowing through our lives - 18 million tons each year, of which 6.5 million tons is packaging and over 3 billion dollars worth is plastic bags in which to throw the other plastics out. (Donella H. Meadows, The Global Citizen.)

November 27, 2003A selection ofsupermarkets in Shanghai, Chinas largest city, will charge shoppers for plastic bags from 2004 in an attempt to reduce waste. The bag fees are part of a three year campaign to clean up pollution. Supermarkets in Shanghaigive away more than one million bagsper day - these either end up in landfills or blowing around the city as litter.

March 2002- The Clean and Green image of Ireland was threatened by the intense littering of plastic bags. The Government has now imposed a charge on all plastic shopping bags (of around 30 NZ Cents per bag). The Irish model has shown that there was a change in behaviour by shoppers almost overnight. There have been reports of a (maintained) 97.5% reduction in plastic bag distribution. Thecharge has generated approximately 10 million (NZ$ 5 million). This money will be channelled into a fund to promote waste management and environmental initiatives.

Environment Ministers have challenged retailers to voluntarily reduce the 6.9 billion bags used each year. They are now looking at introducing mandatory measures.2003 - Coles Bay, Tasmania have banned plastic bags altogether and are providing residents with alternatives such as calico bags.

2003 - The northern state of Himachal Pradesh has implemented a total ban on plastic bags - this includes the banning of the production, storage, use, sale and distribution of polythene bags. Penalties are severe - they include up to seven years in jail or a fine of up to 100,000 Rupees. The law is based on legislation passed by the national parliament, but Himachal Pradesh is the first state to have implemented it.

There are several organisations developing positive alternatives to plastic bags and raising awareness within local communities.

Christchurch City Council is collecting plastic shopping bags from the kerbside as part of their recycling collection. (April 2004)The collected bags are sorted at Recovered Material Foundation paper depot and packed into bales. The bales are sent to Christchurch company Range Industries, which has devised a process called thermo-fusion which turns the supermarket bags into durable plastic planks suitable for boxing, pallets and fenceposts. A bale can contain up to 25,000 bags and weigh around 800kg. At Range Industries, that bale makes up to 1000m of plastic planking (approx. 100mm x 18mm).Go to www. ccc. govt. nz/Waste/Recycling/Plastic. asp for the full story.

Single-use bags, both paper and plastic, represent a huge threat to the environment. This threat is not only related to the sheer volume of them ending up in landfill, but also to the resources needed to produce, transport and (occasionally) recycle them, and the emissions resulting from these processes. Single-use plastic bags are also well known for their interference in ecosystems and the part they play in flood events, where they clog pipes and drains. Envirosax presents a fashionable and practical solution to the problem of disposable plastic bags, so please make a move in the right direction and help to reduce the impact of plastic bag waste worldwide by buying a reusable bag today!

Approx. 380 billion plastic bags are used in the United States every year. That’s more than 1,200 bags per US resident, per year.

Plastic bags are often mistakenly ingested by animals, clogging their intestines which results in death by starvation. Other animals or birds become entangled in plastic bags and drown or can’t fly as a result.

Even when they photo-degrade in landfill, the plastic from single-use bags never goes away, and toxic particles can enter the food chain when they are ingested by unsuspecting animals.

I will use only as many plastic grocery bags as absolutely necessary, by reusing them and using sustainable alternatives ( Like cloth or web bags) but only if 4 other people will do the same. Big Ed, Eco-Gastronome (contact) Deadline to sign up by. 1

I always recycle plastic shopping bag. Many several times. They fit the bathroom wastebasket perfectly and are great to keep in a pocket while beachcombing to pick up all the trash on our shores. However, with so many under the kitchen sink, I try really hard to not get any new ones--boxes, canvas and net bags all fill in when I remember. I am trying to make this 100% of the time.

I've been using canvas bags since the '70s, and am thrilled you're promiting it. Whenever I receive strange comments or looks, I figure I've made an impact, and perhaps just one more perrson will begin using them. My goal is 0 plastic bags in my house for the rest of the year, and to get my husband to grab bags when he heads out the door. My most fun bag to use is one that I bought in the Amazon - colorful woven palm — that seems to say, It's cool to bring my own bags. Farmer's markets always welcome shoppers' own bags.

I'm glad that you're promoting the use of fewer plastic bags. I've recently found out that I have a high skin senstitivity to plastic bags. Therefore, I have to use cloth bags. It's all right, though. I don't mind. It's allowed my creativity (what little I have) to come out of the sewing machine. Aside from the plain old Unbleached Cotton that you can make, there are Denim, Cotton Print, Nylon (very strong stuff, that nylon. A bit more rashy than cotton, though), and upholstery fabrics. Currently, I've made 75 reusable, cloth bags. (Many aren't actually grocery bags, but that's okay.) They are a way to express an individuality, rather than a conformity. (If that's important to you.) Plus, you can carry way more stuff in a cloth bag, than in a plastic bag. (In a typical plastic bag, at the grocery store, you get 2-3 small items {for example, eggs, a bag of baby carrots, and a pack of rubber glove} in one plastic bag. then your bagger pulls out another plastic bag to put something else in) Cloth bags are sturdier and a better way to carry stuff than a plastic bag. (Which stretch and leaves red welts on your fingers) Congratulations on promoting the lower use of plastic bags

PLASTIC bags, the Food industry and all packaging in general - TV's, Electric appliances ALL THESE products are made of Polypropylene and all its plastics dervivates are coming from OIL! IT is a general problem humantiy faces since OIL is not abundandy available and the production generates tremendous amounts of waste! WE all know it but nobody changes the direction - The pollution to produce it (global warming) - are staggering. Not long ago - and many primitive societies today use only natural(not manufactured) sources (like leaves, rattan and different fibers etc. for baskets and their food transportation! and NOT plastics - because they have no Centralized Mass-Food-Distribution and not masses of smart brains which actually DO NOT KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING. TO THE EARTH PEOPLE -Sometimes what looks like a step ahead can be a step backwards - or sometimes it is good to take a step backward for a moment -isn't dancing just the same way? - some scientist and politicians just know how to march straight ahead - - sounds like fun to you?

I can subscribe it easily beacuse I usually do it since many years. so it is not a real pledge. Anycase I don't know in USA or UK but in Italy u pay a plastic bag about 10 eurocents so. everytime i go to supermarket I use about 10/15 bags. If everytime I have to spend 1,50 euros (about 2 USD) and make something wrong in way of plastic pollution.. is so easy re-use old ones for several and several times.. Anyway .. excuse my bad english.)

We have been using canvas bags for a few months now. One of my New Year's resolutions is to be better about remembering to put them back into the car so they're there when we need them. (Thus insuring less plastic bag trips.) All in all, we've found them to be very handy. We got the ones with the long handles which reduce the number of trips between the car and the house at reuseablebags. com. I've heard stories about clerks who were less then enthusiastic about reusable bags, but so far I've only had clerks who thing they're really cool and want to know where we got them. (It helps if you look for teenage clerks with lots of piercings and dyed hair.) The biggest challenge is getting the baggers to put the stuff in the bags without putting the item in plastic first. They seem to want to do this especially with produce and meat.

Www. noplasticbags. org. nz is a new grass roots website dedicated to a New Zealand free from plastic carry bags. Around the world more and more countries are banning or taxing plastic bags and it is time for New Zealand to wake up and do the same. This is about much more than fixing the problems directly caused by plastic bags, it is about increasing the capacity of our society to change. Because very significant change is what is required to face the twin threats of climate change and peak oil. It is not a campaign to eliminate plastic bags, it is a campaign to convince people to consider the consequences of their choices and to make personal changes that help build a vibrant future for us all. Utilizing cutting edge online collaboration tools we can work together more effectively than ever before, so feel free to drop by our campaign centre at and lend a hand. No matter how much time you can spare or what skills you can offer we would love to have you on board.

As Knee Pads Need to kneel in your garden to pull weeds, or on the street to change a tire, but don't want to preserve the memory eternally on your pant legs? Grab a couple of plastic bags and tie one around each knee, covering the area that will be exposed to dirt and grime.

Find many craft projects using plastic bags. A great way to craft green and recycle plastic grocery and (clean) garbage bags.

Grocery Bag PumpkinDonna, from GarbageGifts. com, shared this craft which shows you how to transform a handful of plastic grocery bags into a great pumpkin.

Fusing Plastic BagsFind out how you can fuse a few plastic bags together to create a sheet of plastic you can use in your crafting.

Water Bottle HolderThis easy-to-make water bottle tote is created using strips of plastic bags and crocheting techniques.

This past weekend, EM Co., a Los Angeles boutique, featured its first art exhibit for 2009, RE-FASHION. Plastic Bag. The exhibit featured wearable, one-of-a-kind dresses made from plastic bags and other recyclable materials, designed by local L. A. artists. The designers, Khatia Esartia, Julia Sergeon, Ishi Glinsky, and EM, created pieces that demonstrate how a mundane object, often used as a trash receptacle, can create stylized, eye-catching, inspiring creations. Designers also reused materials like cardboard, mussel shells, string, burlap fabric, wire and Christmas lights on their pieces.

EM Co. s RE-FASHION exhibit featured dresses made from recycled plastic bags and other materials. -EM Co.

We chose to focus on the crinkly plastic shopping bag that you get at Home Depot and grocery stores. It is such a great medium to work with, very versatile, great texture, says EM Co owner, Eveline Morel. The dresses are very wearable, theyre layered onto a silk slip, have lots of holes, keep you from overheating to clean them, you can just hose them down, no ironing required. As continued plastic bag legislation and recycling initiatives begin around the country, and companies worldwide are assessing their environmental impact on their reputations with consumers, plastic bags are being viewed as less in and more out. According to EM Co., the installation focused on how an object that is going out of fashion can create fashion-forward objects of lasting beauty. As a new year begins, eco-friendly materials and designers are beginning to receive more press among other green initiatives. Reuse of waste materials and the use of sustainable materials and fabrics are moving from simply being green to being in-style.

How To ‘RE-FASHION’ Plastic Bags Into Dresses - Earth911.com | girls. ca posted on January 20th, 2009 at 9.39 pm

[.] the rest here. How To ‘RE-FASHION’ Plastic Bags Into Dresses - Earth911.com Related Reading. The New Article 9, Uniform Commercial Code, Second Edition Themes of the Times for [.]

This past weekend, EM Co., a Los Angeles boutique, featured its first art exhibit for 2009, RE-FASHION. Plastic Bag. The exhibit featured wearable, one-of-a-kind dresses made from plastic bags and other recyclable materials, designed by local L. A. artists. The designers,

Reusing your plastic grocery bags is a great way to recycle. Make additional boxes, fill with sacks, and place around your house near your trash cans.