They can be found at 6,000 metres on snowbound passes over the Himalayas and in the depths of the Congolese rainforest. They drift around the Southern ocean and are piled high on the beaches of Nova Zemlaya to the north of Russia after being swept thousands of miles on the Gulf stream.
But the end may now be in sight for the flimsiest of plastic bags after China pledged to ban them from June. China's decision means it has joined an accelerating number of countries, states and cities taking action against the plastic litter.
On Jan 11, shopkeepers in Beijing, who hand out 2bn bags a year, were sanguine about the prospect of no longer wrapping everything in plastic so thin that it can only be used once, and of paying a small tax on all other plastic bags. "No one has said anything to us about it yet, but I guess they will in June when the rule starts. I think it will be inconvenient but we'll just charge for them. I'm sure we'll get used to it," said Wang Jing, a sales assistant at a 24-hour supermarket.
A cashier at a large supermarket said that the ban might be a good thing. "We are probably giving out about 10,000 plastic bags a day. Customers often complain that they are poor quality; we have to use two bags most of the time. No one minds about this because the bags are so cheap. But I think customers might be willing to pay a bit more for better quality."
China took a lead from Hong Kong, which used to produce 8bn bags a year, but after numerous "no plastic" days and voluntary bans, the government introduced a bill to impose a levy on plastic bags.
Densely populated Taiwan, which is running out of landfill space, has not only banned bags but has stopped fast food restaurants and supermarkets issuing plastic knives, forks and cups. The local plastics industry, which has been producing 20bn bags a year, says it expects to see 50,000 jobs lost.
who is the first to ban plastic bags
Plastic bags have contributed to floods and health problems in many countries, blocking drains and providing perfect pools of warm water for mosquitoes and other insects to breed rapidly.
Bangladesh, after they were identified as a leading cause of severe flooding, is the first large country to ban bags in 2002 .
"The trouble is the plastic bag is an integral part of life. We have learned that, to say absolutely no to them, is not an option. Most supermarkets and small shops now use paper bags, but there is still a demand for the very flimsy ones. " said Dr Atiq Rahman, director of the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies, a development thinktank.
The centre had being among organisations pressing the Bangladeshi government to close down dozens of small scale plastic bag makers and impose a country-wide ban. But although the government closed the factories and stopped the bags being made, they have crept back in and the ban has proved almost impossible to police.
African countries
At least 40 countries, states and major cities have imposed, or are considering, bans. According to the UN environment programme based in Nairobi, the plastic problem is now "on the agenda of almost every African country".
Rwanda and Eritrea have banned the bags outright; Tanzania has stopped all imports as well as the manufacture of bags, and flimsy plastic drinking water containers; Kenya is in the process of prohibiting them and South Africa, which once produced 7bn bags a year, has prohibited bags thinner than 30 microns (one micron is one-thousandth of a millimetre). In many cases the bans have not proved effective. A ban on the use of thin plastic bags in Uganda has been widely ignored.
Industrialised countries
Attitudes are now changing fast in industrialised countries. Ireland took the lead in Europe in 2002 with a tax, Australia is planning to impose a federal ban this year, and San Francisco and Oakland in California are forcing shops to use bags made of at least 40% high-grade recycled paper. This week New York passed a law forcing large stores to provide bins for recycling plastic bags. Meanwhile the 33 London councils are planning to introduce a law banning the ultra thin, single-use bags next year and imposing a tax on others.
"Remotest" countries
The growing global rejection of the bag is now reaching some of the remotest parts of the world. Papua New Guinea, Bhutan, Zanzibar and Botswana have all banned bags and introduced taxes. At least six Indian states, including Maharashtra and Himachal Pradesh, have bans or are considering them.
Right or Wrong?
The global plastics industry, estimated to make and distribute between 500bn and a trillion bags a year, has fought back, arguing that plastics are getting more compact and take up less space in landfills. It says that paper bags require more energy to produce, generate more waste and burn less cleanly.
In a statement on its website yesterday the Society of the Plastics Industry, which represents 2,000 plastic manufacturers in the US, said environmental activists and non-government organisations "have promoted a specific agenda and retailers have been too quick to give in to the outcries of alarmist special interest groups".
"Whoever wants to save the planet on this one is off the planet because it won't," Richard Evans, executive director of the Australian Retailers Association, told journalists yesterday. "Supermarkets are already reducing their use of plastic bags by 50%. Plastic bags are a part of our lives - if we replace them we are going to replace them with paper and where's the paper going to come from. Do we cut down more trees ... do we increase greenhouse gases?"
(Guardian)
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