Anti-Plastic Bag Lobby

[echnidna]

Well the wackers are out in force trying to ban the use of plastic shopping bags.
The alternatives touted are
1. Paper bags.
So there go trees into the Second most pollutant industry in oz - The paper makers.
2. Cotton Bags.
Good choice dikheds. The cotton industry is the most pollutant industry in the world.

Commonsense says just change the type of plastic to one that deteriorates naturally.

[Driver]

Bob

When did common sense ever play a part in this type of argument?

Col

[Dion N]

There are some places that have already made the switch to the boidegradeable bags. I was at a supermarket on the North Coast of NSW recently (I think it was an IGA) and noticed that their bags were the biodegradeable type.

As for paper bags, they are recycleable.........

[AlexS]

How biodegradable are these plastic bags? Seem to recall reading that some that were claimed to be were still intact 18 months later. Have to agree about the paper & cotton bags though.

We try & use only the cardboard cartons that the supermarket put out.

[vsquizz]

Hemp is the answer:D

[RETIRED]

Smoking or wearing it? :D

[Toggy]

,

If they were smoking it they wouldn't give a rats rear end about the plastic bags. (Duh, whatcha talkin' about man etc etc.) They don't call it dope for nothing.

Ken

[Grunt]

The idea with the cotton bags is that you use them over and over again. The environmental impact is minimal compared to using and then throwing away plastic bags.

BTW, I bought some reusable bags from Safeway (Woolworths) and they were synthetic.

[journeyman Mick]

Now I don't claim to be a greenie but I do try to minimise my impact on the environment (unless I'm cutting down trees, pushing through the scrub in a 4wd or burning out a few acres as part of a hazard reduction burn :D ) We compost, recycle etc but there's still a bit of waste that needs to be bagged before going into the bin. We use the plastic shopping bags for this. Of course when the supermarkets stop supplying bags altogether (which, no doubt they will) we'll have to start buying plastic bags to put rubbish in. So if everybody in Australia does this there's still going to be a hell of a lot of plastic bags used. What does the environmental lobby have in mind for wrapping of rubbish? :confused:

Mick

[vsquizz]

"I like the string bags man, but my Lentils keep filling through the gaps, freaks me out man"

NFTY Ones

[craigb]

Now I don't claim to be a greenie but I do try to minimise my impact on the environment (unless I'm cutting down trees, pushing through the scrub in a 4wd or burning out a few acres as part of a hazard reduction burn :D ) We compost, recycle etc but there's still a bit of waste that needs to be bagged before going into the bin. We use the plastic shopping bags for this. Of course when the supermarkets stop supplying bags altogether (which, no doubt they will) we'll have to start buying plastic bags to put rubbish in. So if everybody in Australia does this there's still going to be a hell of a lot of plastic bags used. What does the environmental lobby have in mind for wrapping of rubbish? :confused:

Mick

I think I know where you are coming from. We have converted to using those green bag thingies when we go shopping. Naively I thought they were made out of fabric. Nuh, the're made of plastic.
Check the label.
However, we have cut down our plasso bag usage by at least 60% I ireckon and the green plastic bags should be good for at least at few years.

You make a good point about packaging the rubbish though (and we don't have a compost bin, much to our shame :o ). I think we are supposed to do what our parents used to do. IE wrap our rubbish in newspaper and bin it ASAP.

Cheers
Craig

[journeyman Mick]

You make a good point about packaging the rubbish though (and we don't have a compost bin, much to our shame :o ). I think we are supposed to do what our parents used to do. IE wrap our rubbish in newspaper and bin it ASAP.

Cheers
Craig

So what are you supposed to do if you don't buy newspapers? :confused: We don't because:
A)No time to read them
B)Not worth reading
C)Get the news on the radio
D)Any really important bits will get filled in by our local "bush telegraph" system

So are people not going to put any liners in their kitchen tidies? That will mean washing the thing out at least once a day and I'm trying to save water as I'm not on town water.

Mick (trying to balance all the different demands of conservation and consumption for survival :confused: )

[RETIRED]

Go feral Mick :D

[vsquizz]

, Kuranda is halfway there:D

[Grunt]

Mick,

If you don't have any shopping bags left then buy plastic bags for the bin. I think we just need to reduce our impact on the environment. We humans by our very existance, damage the environment and use resources. We just need to make sure we don't damage it faster than mother nature can repair and renew.

Grunt

[Tankstand]

Mick,

Start hoarding those plastic bags! :D

[Iain]

We too have a collection of the re useable green bags but keep forgetting to put them back in the cars (oh dear, greenies will bite at that one) when we bring the shopping home.
I find that we accumulate too many shopping bags even after filling them full of rubbish for the recycle bin.
Thats another point, we have two bins, one normal waste and a recycle, a flyer from the council telling us what we can and cannot put in then lo and behold, 5.30am MOnday, the one garbage trucks puts the two in the same hole. It is not a divided compartment in the back and the council inform me that I can be fined if I put the wrong thing in the wrong bin.

[Tankstand]

Our council has yet to implement the separate bin idea, they do have a different crew driving around in the old fashioned truck with fit lads hanging off the back who collect the recycling. We are asked to sort all of the recycling items, cardboard, paper, cans and glass etc. which we put into separate cardboard boxes and then they come along and chuck the whole lot in together :confused: Why bother sorting?

[silentC]

We use those green bags now. Although they're made from plastic too, they can be reused many times over. Say you fill 6 bags a week at the supermarket. If these green bags last for a year, that's 306 less bags a year per household going into the pit. For our area, that about a million bags a year.

I'm not a greenie by any means but I do wonder what we're going to do with our rubbish when the local tip fills up. I reckon it's going to become very expensive to dispose of it down the track. 15 years ago, the local tip was an open trench. Everything went into it and once a week they'd set fire to it, then run the dozer through and push it out the other end. You can only do that for so many years.

How much plastic bags contribute to the problem compared to disposable nappies, those plastic trays you get your meat and veggies on etc, I couldn't say. I suppose it's something that can be done to reduce it and it's a nice visible and simple thing governments can get involved in to say "hey, look, we care about the environment". I reckon there's plenty of other things that could be cracked down on but plastic bags are an easy target.

[JackoH]

I was in an Aldi stupid-market with SWMBO some time ago :eek: . They have a good idea. they charge you for a plastic shopping bag. 50c I think it was for a large strong bag. The idea being that you keep the bag and bring it back each time you shop. Works to, we,ve had two of these in the car and occassionally remember to take them to the shop with us. Gets a few funny looks in Coles and Woolies though! But nobody has refused to fill them for us yet. ;)
.
Don't start me on bloody Greenies. The enviromental problems of the world would be halved if they just disappeared!! :mad:

[simon c]

No nobody has mentioned that our favourite store that we love to hate (the "B") charges 10c for a bag (it goes to charity). They have seen a significant reduction in the number of bags becasue when pushed most people can find a way of making do. They either re-use cardboard boxes that would have been thrown away anyway or just carry the stuff in their hands.

I'ts amazing that even 10c can make such an impact.

Also, let's not think of recycling as the be all and end all - this is really only one step up from rubbish. I've seen the following as the priority for dealing with packaging.

1. Refuse - as in don't accept the packaging in the first place
2. Reduce - buy items that use less packaging - or don't put something that is already in plastic into another plastic bag
3. Reuse - if we used plastic shopping bags 300 times, we wouldn't have a problem with plastic
4. Recycle - where possible, but don't forget there are significant costs in recycling (transport, processing, etc).
5. Refuse - throw it away. However, have a look at what proportion of the stuff you throw away is real waste and what proportion is just the packaging it came in.

Then think about why we should be doing this? It's not just to save the environment but it also saves us money - half the time we throw things away because we can't be bothered to do the right thing. If we were charged for that, then we would soon do something about it.

Simon

[Barry_White]

3. Reuse - if we used plastic shopping bags 300 times, we wouldn't have a problem with plastic

SimonSimon

I have had plastic bags that don't even make it out of the supermarket before they burst let alone reuse them 300 times.

[simon c]

Simon

I have had plastic bags that don't even make it out of the supermarket before they burst let alone reuse them 300 times.

Sorry Barry, my statement was confusing. I hadn't mean't to refer to the standard bags from the supermarket but I was making the point that one of the reusable bags is significantly better than lots of disposable bags, irrespective of whether it is plastic or not.

Simon

[jackiew]

lived in Munich in the mid-nineties. Two adults and school-age child generated 1/2 a bucket of "rubbish" a fortnight. Everything else was recylable.

Every supermarket had somewhere to dump cardboard and household batteries.

No free bags at the supermarket and no plastic bags for sale either. If you wanted a bag and you'd forgotten yours you could take a cardboard box or pay for a cloth bag.

Every supermarket had a machine( or a person) which took glass jars and bottles and gave you a credit slip for the deposits which got knocked off your bill at the till. No plastic bottles in the shops. No aluminium cans in the shops. No plastic yoghurt cartons ( which most councils here DON'T accept for recycling ). All drinks and yoghurts came in recyclable glass jars.

I've watched people take the inner bag out of a cornflakes packet and leave the cardboard at the supermarket rather than dispose of it at home.

Nowhere was more than a few minutes walk from a recycling centre - big metal tubs in the streets for glass, metal, paper, plastic.

You had three household wheelie bins - one for "rubbish" rubbish, one for paper and one for compostable material.

Public bins in the street had three compartments - one for "rubbish" rubbish, one for paper and one for bottles.

At work there were recycling containers in the stairwells for fluorescent marker pens and our office bins had seperate sections for recyclables and "rubbish" rubbish.

Every few months the "gift wagen" poison truck came round and you could hand in your light bulbs, batteries, old paint etc.

Its only a matter of time guys. You'll get used to it VERY quickly and it will seem really odd when you go somewhere where there are no recycling facilities.

It is going to cost the supermarkets money though because once we all use our own bags they are going to have to change their checkout design for the uk style with space after the checkout for people to pack their own bags.

[silentC]

It is going to cost the supermarkets money
It is going to cost us money because anything that increases their operating costs is going be reflected in the prices.

They've been threatening to give us the 3-bin system here for a couple of years. The trouble is that the council can't afford the bins, the new trucks etc... and they seem a bit nervous about passing the cost on to the rate payer, since we're already one of the highest rated areas in NSW ($2000 plus per year). It's all very well but who is going to pay for it? It's a lot cheaper to chuck it in a hole and let their grandkids worry about it...

[ozwinner]

"I like the string bags man, but my Lentils keep filling through the gaps, freaks me out man"

NFTY Ones
Sound like youve been watching too much of the Young Ones, man.
Ohh Neill its all your fault!!!

Al :D

[simon c]

Sound like youve been watching too much of the Young Ones, man.
Ohh Neill its all your fault!!!

Al :D

When you say Neill, it's all your fault - you're talking about a hippy who's spaced out on solvents rather than our illustrious host who has better things to do with his solvents? :D

[ozwinner]

Your call???


Al :D

[vsquizz]

I'm not saying a thing:D

[vsquizz]

If I can ask the stupid question because the topic, of this thread, has been flogged to death in our household already (Dad's a big environmental Hooligan)

So, I've travelled extensively in SE Asia and the plastic bag problem is massive. So how are other countries dealing with it??.

I reckon we should have 4 or 5 plastic containers which fit into racks in shopping trolleys. Take your boxes in, fillem up and back out to the car wAlHa. No placky bags. That is excepting the five pounds of excessive useless consumer grabbing packaging that every thing seems to be enveloped in these days.


Cheers

[echnidna]

Actually I reckon its a conspiracy by the supermarkets.
Not only do they reduce costs.
They profit by selling us cotton alternative bags.
And they must sell a LOT LOT more plastic garbage bags.
Smart Merchandising

[RETIRED]

My father has a friend that is well into his 70's. He shops at the Safeway store in his town and takes a gunny sack that he has used for 40 years.

He takes most things out of the packets they come in and tells the staff: "Your rubbish, you deal with it."

He then places everything into the sack and toddles off.

[vsquizz]

You have to wonder about consumer rubbish. It seems we are deemed to need it that way, by experts in marketing, packing, presentation, distribution etc.. I recently bought a new mobile phone with car kit and there was two shopping bags full of crap that came with it, foam etc:eek:

I have a pine (ssshh) workbench made entirely out of crates from the Glaziers. It normally goes in the Skip.

Cheers

[ozwinner]

We, my missus and me, are the greatest recyclers, come to my shop and see. :D :D :D


Al

[Grunt]

We, my missus and me, are the greatest recyclers, come to my shop and see.

Does this mean I can take my drawer full of used plastic bags to your shop and you'll give me money for them?

[Sir Stinkalot]

The Stinkette and I use the big green bags from Coles ..... they are much better than the plastic. We can fit the weeks shopping into four or so of the green bags as aposed to 10+ plastic. The greenies (bags that is) are much easier to carry and it saves multiple trips to the car. It is quite easy to carry the entire weeks shopping in one load as the bags don't dig into your hands.

As for the local pick up ... we have a 120L for general garbage ... picked up weekly and 2x 240L, one for recycling (paper and glass etc) and the other for green waste, these are picked up on alternative weeks. All are picked up by seperate trucks and I assume that it all goes where it is ment to. As far as I am concerned I think it is a great idea and it is about time that we started to do something.

:D

[DanP]

I don't mind the whole use less bags thing, but what I find insulting is the marketing ploy used by the supermarkets to get you to buy the green bags.

"You're a dirty filthy environment wrecker and we're all green. We're so good to the environment that you can purchase green bags from us, only $1 each".

I would be interested to see the profit margin on the green bags, which is where the supermarkets true interest is (IMO). They could not care less for the environment, if they did they would do what Bunnings are doing and give the proceeds to charity. I don't care if they recover their costs to produce the bags, but I find their profitting from it abhorrent, especially when they play this moral high ground rubbish.

Dan

[ozwinner]

Does this mean I can take my drawer full of used plastic bags to your shop and you'll give me money for them?
I think you have the concept of "shop" wrong.
We sell, not buy. :D :D

Al :)

[silentC]

I think you have the concept of "shop" wrong.
We sell, not buy. :D :D

Al :)
Where do you get your stock from? :eek: On second thoughts, you'd better not answer that question...

[ozwinner]

Its donated by people who come to the door.

They come to sell but, we have that much stock that we get it for peanuts, just because they want to get rid of it. Mainly because its out of fashion or something.

Al :)

[silentC]

I suppose it's better to get a few bucks for it than to pay to dump it at the tip ;)

[ozwinner]

See, its a win win situation. :D


Al :D

[JackoH]

Want some well used band-saw blades?.

.
http://www.ubeaut.biz/offwall.gif

[jackiew]

I would be interested to see the profit margin on the green bags, which is where the supermarkets true interest is (IMO).
Dan

If i remember rightly the profits from the green bags do go to charity - I think it says so somewhere on the side. The white calico type bags however ( some of which are so small they are useless) do bump their profits up.

On the subject of excess wrapping ... BI-LO often do offers where you can get 3 loaves of bread cheaper BUT you have to put them in a special plastic bag with a bar-code on. So I give the check-out chick the empty plastic bag, tell her to scan it and to count the loaves before I take them off of the conveyor belt. I then leave her clutching the empty bag.

Safeway currently have a special on canned fish . I bought two slabs - the girl at the checkout then asked me to get a can from the display and scanned the same can 24 times!!! I do wonder who writes their software that they can't enter an item once and then multiply it by 24.

[sl_wilks]

This has all gone a bit silent I reckon.

Is the whole idea of a "green" plastic bag a bit of a misnomer? They're imported, made of polypropylene, in China.

What ticks me off are the people who buy half a dozen of those thick green 'replacements' every time they shop. Must be a lot of garages and laundries full of the things by now. What about the effects of this stuff on the environment?

[flea1607]

I Remember when we had Brown Paper bags from the grocers. Then the shops brought in the plastic bags (which you have to use more of because they are smaller than the Brown paper), and now they want US to stop using plastic and want US to pay for there surposed "Green Bags". Isn't up the the shops to stop using the plastic, they started it.:p

[Iain]

And the joys of paper bags, we still buy potatoes in heavy paper bags, and they keep for weeks without going to seed.

[Gingermick]

Want some well used band-saw blades?.http://www.ubeaut.biz/offwall.gif
Do they come attached to a bandsaw?

[Landseka]

I can remember as a young'un and one of a familly of seven, we never had a weekly rubbish pick-up at all, that was an optional extra on the rates at the time - one that we never needed.
This was at a time that plastic & styrene foam had probably not been invented yet so all wrappers were minimal and usually paper based.
Our rubbish only consisted of either this paper product which was burnt in our incinerator ( at a time when smoke wasn't a pollutant, so this action was legal) vegetable waste was either fed into our worm farm which gave us a never ending supply of fish bait or just dug into the garden and the maybe a dozen or so cans a year were crushed and tossed around behind the garage where I think they just rusted away. Remember this was at a time when if you wanted stewed apricots you picked them & stewed them.....no canned stuff for us!:o
I can't see us ever getting back to living like this so we are stuck with ever increasing piles of rubbish.

Regards

Neil

[Sir Stinkalot]

Remember this was at a time when if you wanted stewed apricots you picked them & stewed them.....no canned stuff for us!:o Neil

Neil .... how can you manage to look so good for your age?

[Harry72]

I think the anwser has been mentioned before on this thread... and has been ignored by the government and a lot of people, its called hemp.
Before Du-pont got it banned back in the old days because it was the competion to nylon it was the worlds biggest trade crop, it is totaly enviromently friendly and can be grown just about anywhere with no chemicals and little water... the europeans are a lot smarter than the americans think.
If you want to see the truth about the whole dupont thing there is a good doco called "the billion dollar crop"
The hemp plant has more uses than any other crop or material known to man!

[goat]

i saw a doco on hemp they made a car body out of it and these blokes where belting the poo out of it with sledge hammers and never left a mark very strong stuff (the wife needs a car made out of it :rolleyes: )

[Bob Willson]

On the subject of excess wrapping ... BI-LO often do offers where you can get 3 loaves of bread cheaper BUT you have to put them in a special plastic bag with a bar-code on. So I give the check-out chick the empty plastic bag, tell her to scan it and to count the loaves before I take them off of the conveyor belt. I then leave her clutching the empty bag..

Which she will then promptly throw into the rubbish bin as it is too much effort for too little return to put it back again.




Safeway currently have a special on canned fish . I bought two slabs - the girl at the checkout then asked me to get a can from the display and scanned the same can 24 times!!! I do wonder who writes their software that they can't enter an item once and then multiply it by 24.

The software can do it. The problem lies in staff training

[adrian]

Do plastic bags actually pollute the environment or is it purely aesthetic? I know fish swallow them but what else?
What I mean to say is that if you bury a bag in landfill and then someone digs it up in a few hundred years has it actually polluted the environment. I would have thought that a bio-degradeable plastic bag that deteriorates to a point where it's constituent chemicals are leeched back into the environment would be a far worse polluter.

[Landseka]

Neil .... how can you manage to look so good for your age?
Why good Sir, I have always - and will always use.....Palmolive. So good on the complexion.
:)
Regards

Neil

[Daddles]

Why good Sir, I have always - and will always use.....Palmolive. So good on the complexion.
:)
Regards

Neil

I didn't know Palmolive made axle grease :eek:

Richard

[Iain]

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

[Sturdee]

Do plastic bags actually pollute the environment or is it purely aesthetic? I know fish swallow them but what else?
What I mean to say is that if you bury a bag in landfill and then someone digs it up in a few hundred years has it actually polluted the environment. I would have thought that a bio-degradeable plastic bag that deteriorates to a point where it's constituent chemicals are leeched back into the environment would be a far worse polluter.

My view exactly, provided the plastic bags are properly disposed of into landfill there is no problem with the environment despite what all the politically correct greenies say. :(

Landfill has been used since time immemorial to dispose of unwanted stuff, and it hasn't ruined the environment. It is the littering and reckless thowing away that causes problems.

Besides what will future archeologists do if there is no landfill. :confused:

Peter.

[Bob Willson]

I was doing a bit of bush walking with my sister-inlaw a few years ago and I was eating an orange. of course, the peel was just flung into the bush. Did she go off her head about how it took 20 years for orange peel to completely detoriate. BIG BLOODY DEAL. Who cares? It is a part of nature that had just been returned to nature,. So what if she didn't especially like the colour orange in the bush? It is still going to rot down and provide food for something alse.
Apart from that, the greenies do themselves no favours by making outrageous claims such as these. Orange peel will disappear withing a few weeks. Just dry out and rot away.
You should have heard what she said when I threw a plastic bag onto the camp fire? :D

[Grunt]

Unfortunately, the plastic bags are not disposed of properly. Of the 6.9 billion plastic bags that are used in Australia each year. 80 odd million of them end up in the environment. 100,000 animals die as a result. They do take years to break down.

Our house hold has managed to reduce our bag use by more than 50%. It was simple. Buy half a dozen or so of the reusable bags and use them. Quite simple really. This isn't some thing cooked up by the politically correct greenies to annoy you.

Bob, you sister in-law is a little silly.

[ozwinner]

:D
I was doing a bit of bush walking with my sister-inlaw a few years ago and I was eating an orange. of course, the peel was just flung into the bush. Did she go off her head about how it took 20 years for orange peel to completely detoriate. BIG BLOODY DEAL. Who cares? It is a part of nature that had just been returned to nature,. So what if she didn't especially like the colour orange in the bush? It is still going to rot down and provide food for something alse.
Apart from that, the greenies do themselves no favours by making outrageous claims such as these. Orange peel will disappear withing a few weeks. Just dry out and rot away.
You should have heard what she said when I threw a plastic bag onto the camp fire? :D
Maaaate, she should have been with me when I threw away an orange Monaro back in the 70's.

Al

[Bob Willson]

Damn Al, don't you wish you still had that now? Wouldn't it look great in front of the craporium? :D

[ozwinner]

Unfortunately, the plastic bags are not disposed of properly. Of the 6.9 billion plastic bags that are used in Australia each year. 80 odd million of them end up in the environment. .
Only 80 million out of 6.9 BILLION is real good odds, so realy there is no big issue about plastic bags, well not as big an issue as it could be??


100,000 animals die as a result. They do take years to break down. .
Them bloody animals always take ages to break down, and they stink while the do it, not like plastic bags, they dont stink at all!!

Al :D

[Bob Willson]

Sorry Al. I tried to give you some green but it wouldn't let me. :D :D :D :D :D

[ozwinner]

Damn Al, don't you wish you still had that now? Wouldn't it look great in front of the craporium? :D
Sorry Bob, I was just teaseing, I am a Ford man through and through, if you cut bits off me, it says "Ford", just like Blackpool Rock.

Al :D

[Bob Willson]

Bob, you sister in-law is a little silly.
Tell me about it. :D

[Sturdee]

Unfortunately, the plastic bags are not disposed of properly.

So we agree that the real problem is the lack of proper disposal and not the plastic bags as such. So why don't they concentrate on that aspect instead of trying to make me look a criminal when I carry a plastic bag.

It would be the same as saying there are car accidents because of improper driving behaviour so let's take away the cars and make everyone walk or use only public transport.

BTW we also use the green bags when shopping but sometimes plastic bags are very handy.

Peter.

[ozwinner]

So we agree that the real problem is the lack of proper disposal and not the plastic bags as such. So why don't they concentrate on that aspect instead of trying to make me look a criminal when I carry a plastic bag.

It would be the same as saying there are car accidents because of improper driving behaviour so let's take away the cars and make everyone walk or use only public transport.

BTW we also use the green bags when shopping but sometimes plastic bags are very handy.

Peter.
It would be the same as saying there are car accidents because of improper driving behaviour so let's take away the cars and make everyone walk or use "plastic bags."

Al :rolleyes: :D

[Grunt]

Fundamentally plastic bags are wasteful. They are made from a valuable and dwindling resource. Oil. It is estimated that we have now used 50% of the oil reserves the world has. The next 50% will go considerably faster than the first 50%. 20 to 30 years?

If you reduce them at source then less of them will end up in the environment. Also, landfills are not environmentally sound. Poisons will eventually find there ways into the underground water systems from landfills. The more landfills we have the more opportunities for environmental damage. More rubbish = more landfills.

[DavidG]

I love greenies.
Every where I have planted a greenie first the trees grow much better.

[Bob Willson]

It is estimated that we have now used 50% of the oil reserves the world has. The next 50% will go considerably faster than the first 50%. 20 to 30 years?


Well there you go, another 20 or 30 years and no more plastic bag problems. So what are we worried about?

[craigb]

Our house hold has managed to reduce our bag use by more than 50%. It was simple. Buy half a dozen or so of the reusable bags and use them. Quite simple really.

I reckon it'd be more like 90% in our place. Also whenever I'm asked if I "want a bag" I'll more than likely to say no unless I REALLY need it.

However having said all that, we now have to buy kitchen bin liners. :rolleyes:

I think we're stiil ahead of where we were though.

[echnidna]

Fundamentally plastic bags are wasteful. They are made from a valuable and dwindling resource. Oil. It is estimated that we have now used 50% of the oil reserves the world has. The next 50% will go considerably faster than the first 50%. 20 to 30 years?

If you reduce them at source then less of them will end up in the environment. Also, landfills are not environmentally sound. Poisons will eventually find there ways into the underground water systems from landfills. The more landfills we have the more opportunities for environmental damage. More rubbish = more landfills.

There are flaws in the argument.
Plastics can be made from cellulose = trees which we can grow.

Alternates to plastic bags are,

Paper bags - so we woodchip more trees
btw Paper manufacturing is the 2nd most pollutant industry worldwide

So lets use cotton bags
oops ... the most pollutant industry of the lot

Oil reserves, maybe, but
An industrialised but enegry starved country could come up with a viable alternate to petroleum powered vehicles.

The whole world could change overnight, specially if the new fuel was very low cost. And if governments can't use it as a revenue base we will see a fuel revolution.

Theres a couple of hundred plants that could produce the equivalent to petroleum oil. Most of them are arid country plants.

Rant off for a while

[sl_wilks]

Hey Grunt,


As I understand it plastic bags are made from the lightest part of the distillate- ethylene, which used to be and sometimes still is flared off because it's hard to acpture and nobody wants it.

DavidG, thank you for the funniest quote I have ever heard. Cheered me up immensely.

[kiwigeo]

Hey Grunt,


As I understand it plastic bags are made from the lightest part of the distillate- ethylene, which used to be and sometimes still is flared off because it's hard to acpture and nobody wants it.



I think youll find these days most wet gas projects will send both the gas and liquids to market rather than produce the liquids and flare the gas. A common procedure is to initally strip off the gas and reinject it back into the reservoir while shipping off the liquids to market. Once the liquids are depleted theyll then start piping the reinjected gas. Bayu Undan in the Timor Sea is a good example of this process.

The only time youll see big flares on platforms these days is when theres been an unplanned event such as a compressor shut down

[Ashore]

Heard on the ABC news yesterday that S.A. are bringing in a bill to ban single use plastic bags , with some exemptions for meat products , vegtables etc.....

Why don't put a 5c refund on them as they do with cans , bottles



The trouble with life is there's no background music.

[sl_wilks]

the refunds really seem to work...much more crap on the sides of the NSW Sturt and Barrier h'ways than on the SA roads. The NSW container manufacturers would scream blue murder though. B

ut the plastic bags? Well, I must admit I like them. They're light, clean, convenient hygeinic and they make great bin liners. Why can't they pick on something else (like plastic drinking straws or fast food wrappers...)

[ptc]

hear hear !