Here some info from a couple of links from the ABC - have a listen to the audio if you're interested....

8 MILLION tonnes of plastics enter our oceans each and every year!

An equivalent of 16 shopping bags full of plastic rubbish for every metre of coastline on the planet!

Plastic pollutes the ocean, kills sea creatures and could ultimately affect our food security.


www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/plastic-increasing-in-the-worlde28099s-oceans/6163550



www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/plastic-oceans/6139774


Our garbage is killing the oceans - so try and do your bit to help! Try and choose to buy things that aren't wrapped in the stuff, take your own re-usable bags when you go shopping.

Don't litter, pick up the rubbish you see lying around you if possible.... this problem has happened in just one human generation - it's time to try and do something about it!

A plastic bag looks like a jellyfish to a turtle, broken down small bits of plastic look like food to a fish, drinking straws & party balloons are apparently the biggest killers of sea birds .......

Well said. I have banned plastic straws from my house.

Colesworths usually have a recycling bin for used shopping bags near the checkouts. Whether that plastic gets recycled or just ends up in landfill is another matter, but that's where my bags end up, except for the ones I use as kitchen bin liners

Another very simple problem to vastly improve. But alas, baby steps rule the day.

plastic bags have been banned here for a decade...
you buy your shopping bag once and when it's used you get a new one for free.

Pretty sure it's a win/win for the shops too

I'm horrified of the amount of plastic bags I end up with after a week in oz. (yes I don't bring my shopping bag with me on holiday...)

Know the guy who runs the landfill in Suva. Himself and a group of people have been pushing for refunds on empty plastic containers to help combat the problem.

Coca Cola knocked it on the head.

An interesting doco on the subject here... documentaryheaven.com/addicted-to-plastic/

Sailed into Manila Harbour a few years back, the water had a very pretty colored confetti appearance about it.....so many tiny pieces of plastic, broken down and floating about. Sat off shore in Hong Kong and watched locals eat their take away meals complete with plastic cutlery, foam box and plastic bag...at the end you simply tie it all together in the bag and fling it in the water, the ocean will take care of it. Spent days watching the same bundles of refuse floating in on the high tide, back past on the low.....
Huge job to educate or even get people to care.

I was about to say something similar to the above. Go to Bali and you honestly think the indos care the slightest bit about the environment. Now way. And, truthfully, why should they. They're a third world country. What I mean is, we used to be extremely environmentally unfriendly, and now countries develop and find green technologies, they expect others to tow the line. Like the hardcore smoker who suddenly quits and then gives another smoker grief. Just because you quit something bad doesn't mean others will follow suit asap. The third world contries couldn't care less.

I don't see plastic as being a big problem in Australia.
Most people know enough not to throw plastic into the oceans, and the few that don't will not be changed by removing plastic bags from super markets. They will just buy plastic bags to take their bait and stuff to the beach. Bait will still be sold in plastic bags.

About a month ago, one of the local women did a one square meter grid count on our local beach and came up with a figure of some hundreds of bits of plastic in the sand. On this basis she worked out that metropolitan beaches had some ridiculously large tonnage of plastic in the sand.
I was a bit surprised at this because I use the beaches a lot and thought they were pretty clean.

It turned out the area she chose to do the count was in a nook next to the breakwater where everything collects, seaweed, driftwood, and of course,.. plastic.
That was totally the wrong place to do any sort of spot check and in no way represented the average plastic content of metropolitan beaches, and yet the article was written up as though it did, along with all the warnings of what such high levels of plastic pollution would do to the environment.
Had the same count been taken a hundred meters up the beach the result would have been close to zero.

It must have been obvious that the sample area selected was in no way representative of the whole beach.
I came to the conclusion that it was just another example of how someone with a barrow to push will inflate and exaggerate the problem by whatever method they can think of.

I can now understand the psychology of this after wading through pages and pages of the shark thread last year.
The 'facts' don't have to be logical, accurate or representative. They just need to support the point of view of the cause being pushed.

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PaddlePig said..
I was about to say something similar to the above. Go to Bali and you honestly think the indos care the slightest bit about the environment. Now way. And, truthfully, why should they. They're a third world country. What I mean is, we used to be extremely environmentally unfriendly, and now countries develop and find green technologies, they expect others to tow the line. Like the hardcore smoker who suddenly quits and then gives another smoker grief. Just because you quit something bad doesn't mean others will follow suit asap. The third world contries couldn't care less.

Yes. This concern we have in australia now is a recent phenomena.
Forty years ago the local rubbish dump was on the southern end of the beach. Rubbish was tipped over the edge of a small cliff onto the beach area and then covered over with slag from a nearby steel works. It's still there.
When that filled up, they moved the dump to the edge of the river and used the river bank as a dump for many years.

The Perth rubbish dump was also on what is now the south perth foreshore. All sorts of toxic rubbish was dumped there on the mud flats of the river and then covered up with a bit of top soil. Before that, the dump was on the river bank next to the causeway.
They are all nice green parks now so it looks real swish, but the festering garbage is still under there.


We don't do that any more of course because we are now far too civilised.
That allows us to regard with righteous indignation the people who still do that sort of thing and criticise them as though we never did the exact same thing.
Well, we did, and we did it for many years, and never thought anything of it, so don't be too surprised that those who are still doing it have not caught up yet.
I agree, it certainly does have to change though.

I may be wrong but I believe the green bit of grass over from Shelley bridge where the big pipe goes also used to be rubbish dump. Car batteries and all sorts would be leaking into the river. That's only one generation ago.

My friend Mia took this, but it looks like something out of a Nat Geo movie, but I assure you, this is a photo by your average punter photog enthusiast in Indo:

When we go down to out local beach on hot days, everyone else has the same idea and it doesn't take long for the beach to start filling up with 200- 300 cars.
While this this is fu and the kids find it exciting to muck around with their mate that they find, its depressing to see the rubbish that people leave behind at the end of the day. Beer bottles, soft drink bottles, garbage bags of rubbish, and a big HELLO out there to the teenage group who thought the best place for wrapping of their new GOPRO handle was on the ground as they made their way down to the waves.... Don't worry kids, my 8 year old son had enough sense to pick up your rubbish for us to dispose of latter.

What makes me proud is that both of my kids like to pick up a handful of rubbish each trip to the beach, because as they put it "they are caving the sea lions".

Wish more would do it.

All plastic in the ocean is bad.


The grossest is medical waste, and in 3rd world countries it's disgusting how much is floating around.


That being said, I am amazed that the rest of the world has not followed California's ban on the single use plastic bag. Also, kudos to Byron Bay for only allowing compostable plastic bags to be used in supermarkets and shops.

if you leave an aussie plastic supermarket bag in the sun for a week or two, it virtually disintegrates in your hands like burnt newspaper. they're designed to break down quickly

If you've been to a 3rd world country you know what this sh!t is. Single serves of laundry powder, dishwashing liquid, and a bunch of other stuff. Little plastic packets that they let blow away in the wind. Massive contributor.




The other one to blame, of course is Coca-Cola Amatil and various others that make up 'big bevvie'. They *hate* container refund schemes and have been fighting tooth & nail to stop aussie states reintroducing them.

www.smh.com.au/opinion/beverage-giants-lobby-against-nsw-container-deposit-scheme-20141107-11iqup.html

in Sth ameica a few years ago i was dissapointed to see how the recycling plant at aquas callientas(machu picchu) worked. they carefully collected the sorted recyclable rubbish from the special bins and the hotels/restaurants, took it to the recycling plant ,and when it got dark , tipped it into the urabamba river. the river is the headwater of the amazon, so basically peru,was sending it rubbish to brazil, sorted.
on the hydro electric schemes they had collecting ponds to claen the water of rubbish , the screens had a conveyor system that carried the plastcs past the inlet and dropped it straight back into the river.
i eventually realized that EVerything in the region had to get there by a small narrow guage railway so recycling was never going to be more than just a signpost. last sight in peru was flying out of lima and seeing the the bulldozers pushing rubbish off the end of a manmade peninsular out into the south pacific. the plastic trail dissappeared out over the horizon, but again who is going to pay for an alternative

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pweedas said..
I don't see plastic as being a big problem in Australia.
Most people know enough not to throw plastic into the oceans, and the few that don't will not be changed by removing plastic bags from super markets. They will just buy plastic bags to take their bait and stuff to the beach. Bait will still be sold in plastic bags.

About a month ago, one of the local women did a one square meter grid count on our local beach and came up with a figure of some hundreds of bits of plastic in the sand. On this basis she worked out that metropolitan beaches had some ridiculously large tonnage of plastic in the sand.
I was a bit surprised at this because I use the beaches a lot and thought they were pretty clean.

It turned out the area she chose to do the count was in a nook next to the breakwater where everything collects, seaweed, driftwood, and of course,.. plastic.
That was totally the wrong place to do any sort of spot check and in no way represented the average plastic content of metropolitan beaches, and yet the article was written up as though it did, along with all the warnings of what such high levels of plastic pollution would do to the environment.
Had the same count been taken a hundred meters up the beach the result would have been close to zero.

It must have been obvious that the sample area selected was in no way representative of the whole beach.
I came to the conclusion that it was just another example of how someone with a barrow to push will inflate and exaggerate the problem by whatever method they can think of.

I can now understand the psychology of this after wading through pages and pages of the shark thread last year.
The 'facts' don't have to be logical, accurate or representative. They just need to support the point of view of the cause being pushed.

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seanhogan said..
plastic bags have been banned here for a decade...
you buy your shopping bag once and when it's used you get a new one for free.

Pretty sure it's a win/win for the shops too

I'm horrified of the amount of plastic bags I end up with after a week in oz. (yes I don't bring my shopping bag with me on holiday...)

We are just in the prehistoric age about that here...Here Coles' reply when I told them that plastic bags where mostly finishing in landfill and not in the recycling bin (recycling also use a lot of energy which also pollute but that's another story by the way):

"Thank you for your email regarding the use of plastic bags at Coles.

Coles takes its environmental responsibilities very seriously and is committed to reducing consumer reliance on single use plastic bags.

Coles does not support a ban on plastic bags in all states of Australia because our customers have told us they would like the opportunity to make an informed choice. However, we are committed to encouraging our customers to use reusable bags when shopping in our stores.

We now offer a range of reusable bags for sale in prominent locations in our stores. These include:

- Reusable plastic bags $0.15 cents
- Polypropylene bags $1
- Non-woven Polypropylene bags $2
- Chiller bags $2.50
- Juco bags $3
- Other seasons and promotional bags.

We proudly donate five cents from the sale of each Landcare bag to Landcare for funding school and community gardens.

We also provide recycling bins in all of our stores in (state) to receive plastic bags that are returned by customers.

In some states, we have extended our in store recycling program to include flexible soft plastic recycling (e.g. biscuit packs, confectionery, shopping bags, rice and pasta bags, produce bags, frozen food bags and old reusable bags).

We recognise that our customers have different views about plastic bags and by offering our customers choice we believe we are respecting all customer views.

Once again, thank you for taking the time to contact us. We hope the above information has clearly explained our position and demonstrates that we are committed to plastic bag usage reduction and to recycling in our stores.

Regards"

A very nice way to say that they just prefer making money instead or avoiding some pollution that could be easily avoided. All plastic bags are banned in France and Germany and people still go to the supermarket as long as I know...

Or, we could adopt the Pacific Solution....

asl-insidethegoldmine.blogspot.com/2009/07/pacific-solution-proposed-to-reclaim.html

^^^Gold!

I've been spending the summer in Perth. Been pretty shocked to see how few people take a reusable bag to the grocery store. It's just laziness. It's not hard to keep a few cloth bags in your car. It's actually easier to pack and carry them. Then just put the empty bag back in the car ready for the next trip when you're done. It's all about changing behaviour, and in the process - awareness. People here should know better.

Plastic bags are just processed oil.
Most people drive to the shops in their two ton 4wd, using a litre of two of diesel at least, buy a whole lot of stuff sealed up in multiple layers of plastic wrappers and containers, then put it in very thin biodegradable plastic bags to take it home.
The weight of the plastic carry bags probably equates to a few cc of oil, as opposed to the many litres used on the entire shopping operation.
Why pick on the biodegradable plastic bags?

When plastics and oil has been eliminated from the entire shopping process, and plastic bags are the only remaining item then feel free to give it a serve, but so far, plastic bags are probably one of the least wastages in the whole procedure.
They are often used multiple times until they fall to bits or are used as rubbish bags.
If you eliminate them people will just buy plastic bags to do the same jobs.

“Sometimes, little things make a big difference...”

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pweedas said..
Plastic bags are just processed oil.
Most people drive to the shops in their two ton 4wd, using a litre of two of diesel at least, buy a whole lot of stuff sealed up in multiple layers of plastic wrappers and containers, then put it in very thin biodegradable plastic bags to take it home.
The weight of the plastic carry bags probably equates to a few cc of oil, as opposed to the many litres used on the entire shopping operation.
Why pick on the biodegradable plastic bags?

When plastics and oil has been eliminated from the entire shopping process, and plastic bags are the only remaining item then feel free to give it a serve, but so far, plastic bags are probably one of the least wastages in the whole procedure.
They are often used multiple times until they fall to bits or are used as rubbish bags.
If you eliminate them people will just buy plastic bags to do the same jobs.

Pweedas, not all 2 ton 4x4's end up in the ocean...

The topic is concerned with plastic in the ocean causing untold damage. Yes, we should try to minimise our carbon footprint, but please try to stay remotely on topic.

okey dokey. [on topic]
I was down on the fishing jetty at Coogee yesterday afternoon and the breeze was blowing a bit.
Every few minutes another empty plastic bait bag or carry bag blew off into the water.
I see them often when I'm snorkeling over the reefs. I used to stuff them down my bathers to get them out of the system.
Some of them were quite stinky so I don't bother any more. They were stinky before I shoved them down my bathers.

Banning shopping bags at supermarkets will have a very low impact on this. They will simply buy plastic bags and still take them fishing, and bait bags will still be plastic.

Some would say plastic is not an issue in Australia. Many of you would have seen footage of birds dead with there stomachs full of plastic. Whales are now dyeing from basically inhaling plastic.

Local Perth supply of fish are now being caught with traces of plastic in their system. Basically what was thought is that Plastic would break down was right, BUT it only breaks down into smaller pieces and is then eaten by fish. Then eaten by us and eventually we will have a plastic traces found in our systems

Its a very real problem that needs to be addressed, but its expensive so we will all just say it really isn't a problem

This Sunday is Clean up Australia day. Why not get involved and help clean up your local area. AT the same time you'll be promoting people to maybe do the right thing with their rubbish

Ive got a site running at Claytons in Mindarie if anyone is interested in helping, but it is Aus wide..

www.cleanupaustraliaday.org.au/

I have not used a plastic bag from the supermarket in over 3 years - instead using the re-usables, or opting for a cardboard box.

From my memory, the average weekly shop for me and my wife was about (conservatively) 8 bags or so.

Here are the figures for the bags I haven't used:

1 year = 52 weeks x 8 bags = 416

Multiplied by 3 years - 416 x 3 = 1248 bags not floating around either in the landfill, or somewhere else carried by the wind.


Even though the nay-sayers ask "What about all the products that are already wrapped in plastic?", well yeah, not ideal, but still 1248 less bags waiting to decompose thanks to a changed behaviour.

Imagine if every pupil in my school made the switch? 1248 bags x 1600 students = 1996800

Sheeeiiittt, people need to have a bit of a think about things.






Sorry to harp on, it's just I feel pretty passionately about this topic

not a perfect solution by any means - but a huge step in the right direction.

this packaging material is mostly chalk, with some non toxic recyclable plastic added.

As used by Bannister Downs Dairy for their milk products.

[Bannister Downs iced coffee and choc milk is heaps better than Masters, Brownes or any of that eastern states slop.]

http://www.ecolean.com/package/material/

www.bannisterdowns.com.au/packaging

stephen

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Haircut said..
if you leave an aussie plastic supermarket bag in the sun for a week or two, it virtually disintegrates in your hands like burnt newspaper. they're designed to break down quickly

I put a fresh bag on the washing line today, here in kal were getting 35+ everyday, so lets see just how good their UV degrading claims are