Eco pic of the week

This image of disposable plates and cutlery collected at the Camden Green Fair caught my attention. The photographer is Pat Tuson.  All of  this waste will end up in landfill where the plastic will remain for many decades. The food waste on the plates will decompose and release methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Shame the food producers at the fair didn't think about this issue and choose to use biodegradable plates.

Plastic bag use halved - well almost

In May 450 million single-use plastic carrier bags were given out to shoppers . That sounds a lot but its almost half the number given out in May 2006. Last year the Government set retailers belong to the British Retail Consortium the target of a 50% cut in the number of bags, and they have almost delivered on this - missing the target by just 2%. WRAP (http://www.wrap.org.uk) estimates that in 2009, about 5.6 billion bags will be given out in the UK, down from 10.7 billion in 2006. However, there is still a way to go so other measures such as taxing bags (as planned in Wales) and encouraging shoppers to reuse their bags. Participating retailers in the agreement are: Asda, Co-operative Group, Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s Supermarkets Ltd, Somerfield, Tesco and Waitrose. Morrisons is not a member.

Cutting down on plastic bags has many benefits:

1. Plastic bags are made from oil, so reducing their use reduces the use of oil and electricity in their manufacture and transport
   
2. Plastic bags take hundreds if not thousands of years to decompose, so reductions mean fwer bags end up in landfill or littering our countryside
   
3. Plastic bags can harm wildlife, for example, they get trapped by the plastic, or they may eat it (sperm whales and turtles mistake floating plastic bags as jellyfish), so fewer bags helps wildlife
4. Plastic bags look unsightly when blowing around in the countryside, fewer bags mean less litter.
   

Below is a short piece of footage from Splashdown of a plastic bag floating in the ocean, posing a potential hazard to animals such as sperm whales and turtle, who may mistake them as jellyfish.

Ban the plastic bag

Well done for the Welsh Assembly on starting the consultation process to get rid of the one-use plastic shopping bag. Jane Davidson, Welsh minister for the Environment, Sustainability and Housing has launched a consultation on proposals to introduce a charge on single use carrier bags. On launching the consultation, Jane Davison said “An estimated 480 million plastic bags are used in Wales each year. It takes between 500 and 1,000 years for these bags to degrade and this cannot continue. By reusing bags, not only will we reduce litter, but also help cut our global footprint.”

If these proposals are successful Wales will join Ireland and China in levying a charge on their use.



The United Nations Environmental Programme has joined the clammer for a worldwide ban on the use of thin film single use bags and said "there is simply zero justification for manufacturing them anymore, anywhere". UNEP consider plastic bags to be second only to discarded fishing lines in causing marine wildlife entanglements.



The Carrier Bag Consortium has responded to the UNEP criticisms. Peter Woodall, head of communications at CBC, said: "Plastic bags are very useful containers and can be recycled. Government statistics show that 80 per cent of all households reuse plastic bags to ensure their waste is hygienically tied up and plastics reprocessing is a very good use of resources as it is endlessly recyclable."



If all the plastic bags were recycled it wouldn't be a problem, but there are examples everywhere of wildlife being harmed by the bags. In the oceans, many animals mistake floating plastic bags as a jellyfish and swallow them, while others become entangled in them. To see more of the images that we have available to illustrate this topic follow this link to a lightbox: http://www.ecoscene2.captureweb.co.uk/lbshow.php?lightboxid=1261168667590