Seattle, WA, USA--(Jobwerx News)--A major concern for many countries is the environmental implications of polyethylene plastics bags.

Plastic Shopping Bags and biodegradable packaging - the issues associated with plastic consumption and alternatives being made available.

The HDPE (High Density Polyethelene) plastic bags being used all over the globe are not biodegradable. Plastic bags, littering away in landfills, take literally hundreds of years to decompose.

A number of countries are beginning to take a postive approach to tackling the problem including charging consumers a surcharge, or banning them altogether. Innovate new technologies such as bio-plastics, or agro-plastics are also being commercially introduced.

Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, Australia, the UK, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Shanghai, Bangladesh and many more are all involved in reducing their greenhouse gas emissions, including most recently Japan, who announced a plan to forbid retaliers from distributing plastic bags.

The Japanese government has a rough target to reach pertaining to the Kyoto Protocol, whereby they must reduce their greenhouse gas emissions around six percent by 2008 to 2012 from the 1990 level. The government has recently introduced a ban on dispensing plastic bags through retailers and merchants. In Japan, approximately 30 billion plastic bags are disposed of annually. Japan is also one of the cleanest, most well-kept countries in the world.

The success of Australian communities in reducing plastic bags waste might calm some of the worries. As being an aware society, Japan, is just a couple of activists away from translating the rule into reality.

Recently the use of plastic bags were banned in Kenya and Rawanda. Mr Wangari Mathaai, the assistant environment minister of Kenya, who is also the 2004 Nobel peace prize winner, commented that plastic bags waste are litered with malaria as these discarded bags fill with rainwater and hence offer breeding surfaces for malaria- carrying mosquitoes. The other countries that have banned or limited the use of plastic disposables include India, Bangladesh, and Bhutan.

The assistant environment minister of Kenya, Mr Wangari Mathaai, who is also the 2004 Nobel peace prize winner, linked plastic bags waste with malaria as these discarded bags fill with rainwater and hence offer breeding surfaces for malaria- carrying mosquitoes. The other countries that have banned or limited the use of plastic disposables include India, Bangladesh, and Bhutan.

The IRRI (International Rice Research Institute) found that plastic bags have harmful effects on soil, water and air. When plastic bags get deposited in waste areas, these large quantities cause the soil to become infertile. The accumulation of plastic prevents the sunlight from entering the soil, thus destroying the beneficial bacteria, so necessary for soil fertility.

According to estimates, Pakistan imported 210,000 million tons of polyethylene bags in 2003-04.

There is growing recognition of the need for a sanitation policy and sound operational strategies for dealing with the problem. Governments must ban these plastic bags completely. It stands to reason that when plants stop producing plastic bags, the public will automatically stop using them. As a replacement, agro-plastics, jute, material-cloth and paper bags can be used instead.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change sets an overall framework for intergovernmental efforts to tackle the challenge posed by climate change. It recognizes that the climate system is a shared resource whose stability can be affected by industrial and other emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases.

An estimated 1.2 billion plastic bags were being handed out in shopping centers each year in Ireland.

In the UK, the Environmental Minister is investigating the Irish model of raising taxes on plastic bags.

In Australia, the Retailers Association and Environment have developed an agreement with the Environment Protection and Heritage Council, a code of practice for the managed reduction and recycling of lightweight HDPE plastic bags.

In Hong Kong, 15 million plastic bags are thrown away every day, equivalent to 8 per cent of Hong Kong's municipal solid waste.

In Taiwan they are moving towards banning the free distribution of plastic bags and the Singapore government is launching a campaign to discourage their use completely.

In the U.S and Canada, almost all of the large grocery chain stores accept bags for recycling. Some supermarkets such as Safeway, Albertsons, Extra Foods, and Save-On Foods stores have containers just inside the entrance doors or near the check out counters for the public to place used plastic bags in.

The Bluewater Recycling Association in Ontario claims the average Canadian household produces 8.88 kilograms of plastic bags per year. 2.46% of the total waste stream consists of plastic bags and locally 44.93% of all plastic bags produced are recovered. The publication Northumberland Today says 25 million plastic bags are produced every day in Canada.

California passed a law approximately a decade ago that required plastic trash bags (manufactured for waste disposal rather than shopping) to be made up of a minimum of 30% recycled content by 1/1/95 (for bags greater than or equal to 0.75 mil thick).

In New Zealand approximately 800,000,000 supermarket bags are used per year. The objective of the draft New Zealand Packaged Goods Accord 2004 is to ‘improve the sustainability of packaging used in New Zealand’.

Biodegradable or bio-plastics bags and simliar packaging are becoming an attractive option to those involved in the collection of putrescibles and to the food packaging industry.

Some glaring facts about plastics production and consumption; for example, over $300 million worth of plastic related products are produced annually by 1.5 million workers in the USA and more than 100 million tonnes of plastics are produced annually worldwide. The largest single use is in packaging (30%). Plastics account for about 18% of the total volume of municipal solid waste in the USA.

With pressures including the threat to raw materials such as oil, due to over consumption, fast decreasing landfill space and dangers associated with incineration of petroleum-based plastics, bioplastics and agro-plastics are the next most obvious choice for the food packaging industry. There are a large number of sources of natural polymers in abundance, such as starch, cellulose corn and calcium carbonate. Many of these alternatives are al ready in use.

The Answer: Introduce legislation requiring the plastic packaging industry and organic recovery system operators to use bioplastic materials and conduct further research into more sustainable, environmentally sound, recyclable products.

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