We’re drowning in plastics. With governments setting un-ambitious targets, corporations are now listening to consumers who are demanding less plastic packaging and food containers.
Positive messaging wins the day.
AAP Image/Dallas Kilponen
Plastic bags will soon be gone from major supermarkets and many other shops too. Campaigns to reduce plastic even more should focus on positive advice, rather than shaming shoppers for their plastic use.
A plastic bag floats in the ocean in this 2016 photo.
Creative Commons
Tonnes of plastic end up in the ocean each year, but a switch away from petroleum-based products to bio-derived and degradable composites could lessen marine pollution.
The Victorian government has a new proposal to ban plastic bags. What is it missing?
suvajit/pixabay
Victoria’s proposed ban on single-use plastic bags is a step forward, but what about all the other unnecessary packaging? A truly effective waste policy should offer a comprehensive plan for packaging.
Plastic trash on San Francisco’s Ocean Beach.
Kevin Krejci
Matthew Savoca, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
A new study shows that anchovies – key food for larger fish – are attracted to plastic trash because it smells like food. This suggests that toxic substances in plastic could move up through food chains.
What will we do for bin liners now?
AAP Image/James Ross
Banning single-use plastic bags makes sense, as long as it doesn’t usher in behaviours that are just as bad, or worse – like over-using heavier bags made of even more plastic.
Undoing shoppers’ engrained behaviours is a tricky job.
AAP Image/Julian Smith
The success of the plastic bag ban announced by Australia’s big two supermarkets will hinge on whether they can persuade customers to change an engrained behaviour - without annoying them.
Selling these new bags at 15 cents each, effectively creates another revenue stream with nearly A$71 million in gross profit.
Paul Miller/AAP
Moves by major to supermarkets to only offer plastic bags for a charge could make these businesses more than a million dollars a year, but it may only have a small impact on the environment.
Reusing and recycling of plastic waste makes more sense for Kenya than a ban.
Reuters/Luc Gnago
You might have heard the oceans are full of plastic, but how full exactly? Around 8 million metric tonnes go into the oceans each year, according to the first rigorous global estimate published in Science…
Plastic bags are still hanging around years later.
Adrian S Pye
After months of deliberation and consultations, the UK government’s long-awaited announcement about a plastic bag charge arrives, only for Defra to shoot it full of holes by opting to exempt retailers…
The European Parliament has voted in a draft law aimed at halving the use of plastic bags across the continent by 2017, and further reducing them by at least 80% by 2019. This positive move is aimed at…
A Malaysian initiative to reduce plastic bags has not had a significant effect in reducing plastic waste going into landfills…
Customers leaving a Target store in Sydney earlier this year, with some of the biogradable shopping bags that can be bought at the counter.
AAP/Dan Himbrechts
Charging for plastic bags at the checkout and even banning disposable plastic bags has been a growing global trend in recent years. So what should we make of the news that retailer Target is binning its…
World of bag people: a million a minute are used globally, with Australians churning through almost one a day on average.
Flickr/Heal the Bay
Between 30 million and 50 million plastic bags enter the environment as litter in Australia each year. These environmentally damaging bags - produced to be used once and then thrown away - are a symbol…