New Zealand to ban single-use plastic bags
WELLINGTON: New Zealand became the latest country Friday to outlaw single-use plastic shopping bags, with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern saying they will be phased out over the next year as a “meaningful step” towards reducing pollution. New Zealand uses “hundreds of millions” of single-use plastic bags each year, many of which end up harming marine life, Ardern said.
“We need to be far smarter in the way we manage waste and this is a good start,” she said. “We’re phasingout single-use plastic bags so we can better look after our environment and safeguard New Zealand’s clean, green reputation.” Ardern said her coalition government, which includes the Green Party, was facing up to environmental challenges and “just like climate change, we’re taking meaningful steps to reduce plastics pollution so we don’t pass this problem to future generations.”
Single-use plastic bags are among the most common items found in coastal litter in New Zealand and the environmental group Greenpeace welcomed the decision to outlaw them. “This could be a major leap forward in turning the tide on ocean plastic pollution and an important first step in protecting marine life such as sea turtles and whales, from the growing plastic waste epidemic,” Greenpeace Oceans Campaigner Emily Hunter said.
A United Nations report in June said up to five trillion grocery bags are used globally each year, which is nearly 10 million plastic bags per minute. “If tied together, all these plastic bags could be wrapped around the world seven times every hour” and like most plastic garbage barely any is recycled, said Erik Solheim, head of UN Environment. The UN said more than 60 countries had introduced bans and levies on single-use plastic items like bags. But better waste management, financial incentives to change consumers’ buying habits and research into alternative materials were needed to make any real change, it added.
France penalty
France plans to introduce a penalty system that would increase the costs of consumer goods with packaging made of non-recycled plastic, part of a pledge to use only recycled plastic nationwide by 2025, an environment ministry official said yesterday. Brune Poirson, secretary of state for ecological transition, said the move was one of several to be implemented in coming years, including a deposit-refund scheme for plastic bottles.
“Declaring war on plastic is not enough. We need to transform the French economy,” she told the Journal du Dimanche newspaper. Under the new plan, products with recycled plastic packaging could cost up to 10 percent less, while those containing non-recycled plastic up to 10 percent more, Poirson said.
The government also aims to increase taxes on burying trash in landfills while cutting taxes for recycling operations, hoping to address the growing problem of tons of plastic finding its way into oceans. In a sign of growing public awareness of the problem, France is among several countries hit recently by a wave of “plastic attacks”-where shoppers dump all the packaging of their purchases outside stores.
“When non-recycled plastic will cost more, that will eliminate much of the excessive packaging,” Poirson said. France currently recycles around 25 percent of its plastic, according to the magazine 60 Million Consumers. It has already outlawed singleuse plastic bags in supermarkets unless they can be composted, hoping to encourage people to shop with their own bags.
The Carrefour and Leclerc supermarket chains have also said they will quit selling plastic straws in the coming months, ahead of a law outlawing them by 2020. The European Commission also wants to sharply cut down on single-use plastic objects, announcing in May rules requiring the use of alternative materials and incentives for businesses. Plastic production has soared more than 40 percent globally over the past 10 years, mainly for packaging.