Plastic Bag Bans are Anti-Science
From 1 July the government has banned retailers from supplying single use plastic bags. The ban was beaten to the punch by several major retailers who had already committed to eliminating the use of this environmental menace. The problem? The ban on bags is anti-science. The science, for those prepared to examine the issues objectively, is clear: not only is the problem of plastic bags (and the next target, straws) not as big stated, it doesn’t deal with the real issues and the alternatives are worse than the original problem. It all began with a laudable goal: to reduce the volume of plastic ending up in the oceans. Plastic bags we were told were ending up in the sea in vast quantities and killing all manner of marine wildlife. Let’s start with the science on the problem. It’s incontrovertible that too much plastic ends up in the oceans. However, the vast majority of this plastic has nothing to do with bags (or straws). Instead approximately three quarters comes from