Plastic bags are just the start
SO a major supermarket chain has got the jump on a nationwide plastic bag ban. Good on you, Woolworths. The supermarket group has announced it will be getting rid of single use plastic bags this week from some of its outlets in Queensland, Victoria, Western Australia and NSW, ahead of withdrawing them completely across the country in July this year.
The bags are already banned in South Australia, the ACT, Northern Territory and Tasmania.
Coles are joining in and have also announced they’ll be getting rid of bags in some stores this month.
If you’ve ever seen someone bag up a solitary bottle of milk — a product that already comes with a handle for carrying — it’s pretty obvious we’ve stopped thinking about the use of plastic bags and the volume of waste single use plastics create.
But there are so many other questionable conveniences that we have absorbed into modern life.
Here’s a list of other things we should ban, pronto. Yes, it’s one of those impossible conundrums. How can you remember to grab your reusable coffee cup if you haven’t even had a coffee yet? But the idea that you just slug down a cup of joe and fling the cup in the bin within a few minutes is a kind of madness.
It’s not like we’re short of options to replace the disposable coffee cup. A mug, anyone? Or a lightweight reusable cup? They’re noise polluters and annoying to all within earshot. Put down the blower, take off the earmuffs, try a rake and the world will thank you. Yes, it seems like our supermarkets are awaking to the huge contribution they and we, as customers, collectively make to landfill.
But let’s have a serious look at what’s happening away from the reg- isters, because last time I checked, fruit and veg already have their own packaging, in the form of skin, perfectly designed by nature.
So why are the big chains still bagging up bunches of bananas? Or hermetically sealing a single cucumber? It’s completely fruity. If you really want to freak yourself out about the way we treat the planet, look up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
No, it’s not some kind of cruise liner for fans of those freaky faced dolls from the 80s. It’s a huge floating mass of rubbish floating in the Pacific Ocean and the majority of it is plastic.
Nobody in their right mind would want to consciously contribute to this planetary shame, so for those of us lucky enough to have unlimited access to fresh drinking water, it’s time to rethink paying for H2O in a plastic bottle that could end up floating in the oceans. Go to the tap and fill up a cup, ya big baby. When everyone has suitcases with wheels, what is the point of a travelator that moves at the same pace as a drunk snail? You’ve been sitting on a plane for literally hours. Try walking it off and reducing your risk of DVT at the same time.
DISPOSABLE COFFEE CUPS LEAF BLOWERS PREPACKAGED FRUIT AND VEG PLASTIC BOTTLED WATER TRAVELATORS PLASTIC YOKES
While they’re handy for keeping a tinnie with its family of beers — no one wants to be accused of being a few beers short of a six pack — once these supposedly practical bits of plastic find their way into the ocean, they’re exactly the kind of thing that can be ingested by a turtle or other marine life and end up killing them.
Suddenly that frosty one doesn’t seem so appealing, does it? Stick to a biodegradable six pack holder and we can all have a brew in peace.
WET WIPES
For some unknown reason, toilet paper manufacturers have created ‘luxury’ wet wipes that aren’t supposed to be flushed down the loo.
Except they are, and then they bunch together with other material in the sewer and create giant obstructions, known as fatbergs. Queensland Urban Utilities workers found some in their sewerage system last year and said the cost of repairs could run into hundreds of thousands of dollars.