eco friendly or not....

There was an interesting article in today's Independent newspaper with the headline, 'Plastic fantastic! Carrier bags 'not eco-villains after all'. It was an account of unpublished government research which found that plastic carrier bags were less harmful to the environment than paper or cotton alternatives.

The report, commissioned by the Environment Agency in 2005, compared seven types of bags to see which had the lowest environmental impact when used only once. Impact was measured by the level of pollution caused by extraction of raw materials, production, transportation and disposal for each type of bag.  According to the report, each paper bag would need to be used 4 times and a cotton bag would need to be used 171 times to be comparable to a plastic carrier. This led the authors to conclude that, if shoppers switch to alternatives, they need to use them time and time again to be greener.

I found it an interesting read. Under a headline which said that plastic carriers were not 'eco villains', it went on to confirm the damage they do. Six billion plastic bags are used across the UK annually and the environmental damage they cause through litter and marine pollution is indisputable. In addition, plastic carriers are oil greedy in their manufacture.  

The controversy about plastic bag usage and its relative importance as an environmental issue shows no sign of diminishing. The most recent high profile example is the Welsh Assembly's announcement to charge 5p for every carrier from October 2011. However, as George Monbiot points out, plastic bags are not the biggest problem we face, only represent a small proportion of domestic waste, and distract attention from  more important issues. In an article about why there's so much interest in plastic bags, he says:

'Because dealing with plastic bags is easy. Easy for the government, easy for retailers, easy for shoppers. It threatens no one, makes money for the shops (if they charge for their bags) and ensures that everyone feels better about themselves, while continuing to trash the biosphere just as we did before.'

Food for thought....