Let’s bag this shame

DINOSAUR alert: I used to get the equivalent of my age in pocket money until decimal currency came in and ruined everything; my weekly payday of sixpence was downgraded to a newly- minted 5c.

Luckily there was a way to top up the cash reserves for my lolly habit. We called it “taking the bottles back to the milk bar” and now it’s known as a container deposit scheme.

All drinks came in bottles then, so haunts like my mate’s dad’s motor mechanic’s workshop were a gold mine. Worth 5c each, we’d each take four empty Coca Cola and Fanta bottles to the milk bar and spend our massive 20c profit on mixed lollies, Choo Choo bars and Fags: entrepreneurial primary schoolers with a great work ethic, disposable income and sugar habit. For reasons unknown the scheme was stopped in Victoria but continued in South Australia. Nationally, drink labels have taunted us with the words “five cent refund in SA ONLY” to this day, especially when it increased to 10c.

With plastic the most common material used for drink containers Queensland is finally getting on board around 40 years later, but the initiative to reduce landfill and help save our marine creatures from choking on plastic hasn’t been welcomed by all.

Along with the container deposit scheme is a phasing out of single- use shopping bags, but Facebook comments went into meltdown as people argued these bags are re- used for rubbish, dirty nappies, to line waste baskets and more. We will now have to purchase rubbish bags but evidence from South Australia proves the overall reduction of plastic bags is well worth it.

Queenslanders use and discard over two billion drink containers and six billion lightweight shopping bags a year; many bags are made from petrol using an estimated 100 million barrels of oil globally, definitely something we can do without.

You might have heard of the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch,” one of five masses of everincreasing plastic and fishing detritus adrift in our ocean. It’s not just the floating waste that you can see that fish are nibbling, underneath the water are pyres of microscopic plastic fragments thought to be from biodegradable plastic bags that are also ingested by marine creatures.

Enjoying your snack pack of tuna? You may as well eat the plastic fork that comes with it.

You might argue that you reuse all of your bags but the truth is that most people don’t. Checkout operators will tell you that many shoppers insist certain items are placed in separate bags; hopefully supermarkets offering heavier- duty plastic bags for 15c or the far better BYO option will stop this crazy wastefulness. Purchase a roll of small rubbish bags for dirty nappies and prawn shells, wrap food scraps in newspaper and see our waste habits change. This is a national issue, not a state one, and now we’re on board perhaps Victoria, Tasmania, supermarket delicatessens and greengrocery sections will be shamed into reducing our reliance on plastic. We are an island nation. Who wouldn’t want to help preserve the marine life that surrounds us?