Kids have bags of great ideas on how to send plastic packing

Published on October 27, 2005 By Rajiv Badlani In Business

Here’s a wonderful story from www.smh.com.au/ A class of 11- and 12-year-olds in Australia is leading a push to make the Royal National Park towns free of plastic bags, the first time a school has instigated such a ban.

The Bundeena Public School year 6 campaign - "No plastic packing for Port Hacking" - started with an environmental education project. The snorkelling students were disgusted at the number of plastic bags they found floating in the waterway. The 28 students followed this with a litter survey, letterboxed homes and yesterday called a public meeting to build support for a possible phase-out of bags by September 1. The students are challenging other schools in the Sutherland Shire to follow suit. Nationally, about eight towns and suburbs have ditched plastic bags altogether and many others are planning to do so. Charlotte Bawden, 12, said: "It's the whale season right now and some whales have been found with plastic bags in their stomachs. It's hurting the animals. The turtles think the plastic bags are jellyfish and they eat them." Bundeena and nearby Maianbar are surrounded by national park, Port Hacking and the Pacific Ocean. Hayden McLaggan, 11, said the students were keen whale watchers - they saw five humpbacks yesterday morning - and wanted to protect the mammals from man-made threats such as plastic bags. Planet Ark project manager Doug McLean said: "This is the first town where the children have led the way." The National Parks and Wildlife Service has just banned plastic bags and brought in $200 fines at a rock-fishing site at Wattamolla in the national park. Bundeena and Maianbar, with a dozen shops and a combined population of 3000, are similar in size to the Tasmanian tourist town of Coles Bay, which was the first town to ban plastic bags. Some Bundeena cafes have already stopped supplying plastic bags. The owner of The Fish Exchange, Bruni Ullrich, sells calico bags for $1.10. "People love it after it sinks in," she said. Warren Mason, a partner in the largest retailer, IGA Bundeena, said it was a "wonderful idea in theory" but would require a re-education program for consumers to change old habits. "There are people who buy a two-litre bottle of milk, which has a handle, and they still want it put in a plastic bag," he said. It’s a sad thing that most smaller Australian stores don’t know how affordable reusable cloth bags can be. I hope some of them check out our prices at www.badlani.com/bags/

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