With all the pieces in the press about plastic bags recently in the pressI have decided I must write about it. My issue is I don’t get it. Why can’t people stop using them? And why do they kick up a fuss when people start talking about a fee applied to them?

Prior to moving to Yass I lived in the inner Sydney suburb of St Peters and the closest shopping centre was Marrickville Metro, I guess the type of shopper was one that is environmentally aware and I would guess that 40% of people bought their own reusable bags. Here in Yass I have noticed that it is different and that when we are in either Woolworths or Franklins that we are usually the only people using reusable bags. Is it that country people don’t really care about the damage that bags do? Or is that they are just not aware of the issues?

As I look out my sliding door while I write this piece, I don’t notice the pollution as much as in Sydney, I don’t see the plastic bags blowing around in the street – is this the reason?

While on this subject and if there are people reading saying “I reuse my shopping bag, I use it as a bin liner” or “I could not survive without my plastic shopping bags” here are a few pointers on how I go about a full life without shopping bags.

1. Use canvas recyclable bags, I have approx 24 bags in a central place at home that we grab when we go shopping, even if we are just going into a small store we usually have at least one with us, just in case.
2. Place some boxes in the boot of your car then you can wheel the supermarket trolley to your car and place the items in the boxes.
3. Separating your waste at home – recycling in the recycling box, green waste in the compost/worm farm, and food scraps etc in a few layers of newspaper, placed in the bin – see no bin liner needed.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 10th, 2008 at 4:15 am and is filed under Climate change. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.