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Peter Garrett, environment official and former singer |
SYDNEY, Australia - The Australian environment minister said yesterday he hoped to ban all plastic shopping bags by the end of this year.
"There are some four billion of these plastic bags floating around the place, getting into landfill, ending up affecting our wildlife, and showing up on our beaches while we are on holidays," Environment Minister Peter Garrett said.
"I think most Australians would like to see them rid."
The move would go one step further than China, which said this week that it would ban ultra-thin bags and make retailers charge for others.
"We think it's absolutely critical that we get cracking on it," said Garrett, the former leader of the rock band Midnight Oil, a longtime environmental campaigner, and a leader of the Labor Party.
Garrett said he planned to meet with state officials in April to figure out how the ban could be enacted.
The Labor Party was swept to power late last year, partly on its promise to tackle the country's environmental challenges.
In December, one of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's first actions on assuming office was to sign the Kyoto Protocol on the Environment, reversing years of opposition by his predecessor, John Howard.
The global momentum against plastic bags is growing.
In its announcement on Tuesday, China called for "a return to cloth bags and shopping baskets to reduce the use of plastic bags."
The move follows restrictions in South Africa, Ireland, Taiwan, and Bangladesh, which has banned all plastic bags.
Australia had an early role in the war against plastic shopping bags. In 2003, the village of Coles Bay, in Tasmania, became the first community to ban plastic bags. The move against plastic bags was led by Ben Kearney, who runs a bakery and cafe in Coles Bay.
He estimated that the initiative in the village, which only has 200 residents but caters to 250,000 tourists a year, had saved a million plastic bags since its inception.
"It's been a matter of changing people's habits," he said, "and it has become a way of life for locals now, and tourists appreciate it."
Not everyone is pleased with the move.
Richard Evans, who is the chief executive of the Australian Retailers Association, believes it will be counterproductive.
"This is populist politics at its worst," Evans said yesterday.
"Everyone would agree that they don't like to see plastic bags blowing down the street and floating in our waterways, but this is a litter issue, not a legislative issue."
Evans said that it was still unclear which bags would be banned, and he asked about the future of garbage can liners and freezer bags.
He said that the association's research showed that householders recycled the majority of supermarket plastic bags.
And he questioned the environmental argument.
"We get paper bags from pulping trees - and that is supposed to be better?" he asked. "What's wrong with biodegradable plastic bags?"
Evans said that his members wanted more discussion and pointed to the fact that supermarkets had led the charge to cut plastic pollution, reducing the number of bags they use by 50 percent from 2002 levels.
"The devil's in the detail," he said. "We need more leadership than legislation."
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.
