Still a place for bags
While acknowledging the global problem posed by plastic litter and commending all efforts to address it, CEO of paper and plastic packaging manufacturer, recycler and distributor, Transpaco Limited, Phillip Abelheim, believes the impact retail plastic bags have on the environment is overstated and receives a disproportionate amount of attention by the environmental lobby.
“The weight of all retail plastic bags used in SA per year represents a mere 0.025% of all solid waste disposed of annually in landfills,” he says. “Moreover, most retail plastic bags available in SA are produced from post-consumer recycled material in varying proportions and all are recyclable.”
In the early 2000s, then environmental affairs minister Valli Moosa worked with retailers, unions and industry to implement regulations to govern the production, sale and use of retail plastic bags. The exercise was, says Abelheim, a success.
“Since inception, the retail plastic bag value chain has contributed vast sums of money to state funds, presumably ending up with the department of environmental affairs,” he says, adding that the plastic bag is the only packaging item for which an environmental tax is levied.
SA’s retail plastic bag is legislated to be a minimum thickness of 24 microns, which, says Abelheim, is very different from the 12 to 15-micron bags used in most African, American, Asian and European markets.
“This renders the South African retail plastic bag unique and unquestionably reusable for its primary function shopping
and then for a multitude of secondary uses,” he says. “Unlike other metal, paper and plastic packaging associated with shopping, the retail plastic bag is the only item that is not single use and is reused several times over.”
Abelheim believes a complete ban on plastic bags is not a solution. “The temptation to call for such is misguided,” he says. “Cost-effective, ecofriendly alternatives that do not pass the cost on to the already hard-pressed consumer have not been identified to date.”