Plastic bags

WE ARE distracted by thoughts of jihadi attacks here or Trump thumping North Korea there.

But then comes along an issue of national importance that affects all of us at the local level.

The decision of Woolworths and Coles to phrase out the use of plastic bags is sure to have unintended consequences.

Some of us are old enough to remember a world without plastic bags and our mothers wrapped the kitchen scraps in newspaper.

Garbage was popped in the non-wheel tin bin outside and the bin was emptied by the garbo onto his truck.

These days most young people get their news on a smart phone or Ten’s The Project.

When they run out of little cardboard boxes to place garbage in, what will they do when a newspaper is rarely seen in the share house?

At high school they are used to dumping rubbish on the ground.

The local IGA store at Maleny has a solution.

Groceries are placed in bio-degradable bags that break down and don’t upset the platypus colony in the adjacent Obi-Obi Creek.

If Coles and Woolies do not have a solution like this, what will happen to unwrapped kitchen garbage just dumped in the wheelie-bin?

In the summer heat there is guaranteed to be high pong coming to a wheelie-bin near you.

— PETER KNOBEL, Toowoomba