Time was when we all worried about it, the Irish, the Scots, the South Africans, the Australians, us Indians… but the Americans didn’t.Everyone else’s worrying and all the clean-up action lost meaning because it’s the Americans who consume most of the stuff on earth, and use – and throw away the most plastic bags too. So, seeing this article in Newsday gave me great joy. That’s one thing I love about the Americans. Once they pick up a cause, they run with it with an energy and intensity that ...

They're cheap, easy and everywhere: As many as a trillion plastic bags are used worldwide a year. But would Americans kick their plastic addiction if they had to pay for them? Alaskans call them "tundra ghosts" and "landfill snowbirds." In China, they're "white pollution." South Africans have sarcastically dubbed them their "national flower." Snagged in treetops in Ireland, they become "witches' knickers." The bags are not just a blight, but are wasteful, kill wildlife, pollute oceans and ma...

Because stores in Russia don't give away free plastic shopping bags, that's why. That's why the Irish government imposed a tax on plastic shopping bags and reduced usage 90%. The folks who run our convoluted world can’t accept that there are simple solutions to seemingly complex problems. With one fell swoop we can stop our earth from being choked at the rate of one million plastic bags being thrown away every minute! What do we have to do? Do we need a heavy think tank to figure this one out...

Its nice to know that there are like minded folks out there. I just read a weblog from a guy called Josh Dorfman who runs an online lifestyle company called Vivavi.com. He has concerns about the same things that bother me and I’m going to write to him hoping we can work together in some way soon. Be nice to actually syndicate with a whole bunch of like minded business folk. Read his blog. Its at http://vivavi.com/Vivavi_Daily.php

I suspect these guys will have a point of view on the kind of world we leave behind for them.The world presently throws away one million plastic bags a minute. I don’t think these guys will appreciate a world where barren landfills full of plastic prevent any living thing from growing. Fortunately, some people are thinking about this problem. More...

I recently spent a weekend at a tiny beach called Kelva where my friends Rumy and Shernaz Shroff have a place on the beach. Delightful hosts. I love being invited.To get there you drive upto a place called Manor on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad highway and then turn off for Palghar. The road takes you through some ghats (beautiful but you get dizzy with the winding road if you’re not driving) and then takes you onwards to a little village called Kelva which is bang on what used to be a beautiful beach...

Outside the Western Alaska village of Emmonak, white plastic shopping bags used to start appearing 15 miles from town. They blew out of the dump and rolled across the tundra like tumbleweeds. In Galena, they snagged in the trees and drifted into the Yukon River. Outside Kotlik, on the Yukon Delta, bags were found tangled around salmon and seals. No more. All three villages banned the bags."It's working out good here," said Peter Captain Sr., chief of the tribal council in Galena, where the ci...

More litter was left on Britain's beaches in 2003 than in any other year, according to a new survey by the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) says a BBC report. Plastic bags made up 50% of the litter found with 5,831 collected. The MCS want a big reduction in the amount of plastic packaging used on items and would like the government to bring in tax on plastic bags. The Australians are achieving a lot even without a tax like the Irish have done. On a voluntary basis they seem to be moving peop...

This little polypropylene bag is an absolute wonder. It has cut plastic bag usage in Australia by 1.18 billion plastic bags. That’s a lot of bags. The Australian carried an article about this in their issue of March 12th.Trends, says futurist John Naisbitt, are like horses, easier to ride in the direction they are going.Catch a trend early and you can use it to your advantage. And ecological concerns, especially about the harm plastic bags are doing to our environment, is one that is going i...

I just read a story by Eric Staats in the Naples Daily News about how the Colliers County tourism promotion guys had to give up their plans to give away plastic bags to tourists for shell collection when the county environment experts intervened. Nancy Payton, field representative for the Florida Wildlife Federation praised the decision to pull the bags off the beach. Like most folks in the US they appear not to be aware that for just a little more than the plastic bags were costing them, the...

Daniel H. Trafford is the managing editor of the Kent County Daily Times and he’s written a article on a $250,000 advertising campaign to be launched to combat the problem of plastic bags blowing in the wind. It seems that their community spends about $1 million annually just picking up these bags that blow all over the place from trash being delivered to the Central Landfill It’s nice that they’re catching on. It would be even nicer if they followed the lead of places like Coles Bay in Austr...

My compliments to Arrissia Owen Turner for the well written article titled "Paper, plastic and pocketbook-could bag charge hit Big Bear?"Her article appears here http://www.bigbeargrizzly.net/ In her article she's said "For, say, a family of four who buys maybe 14 bags worth of groceries during a weekly trip to the grocery store, that would be an additional $2.38. If half of those bags get double bagged, that would be $3.57. Plenty of penny-pinchers aren't pleased. If instead they were to bu...

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation today announced that a man named Australia's local hero for 2005, is a baker from the island state of Tasmania.Ben Kearney, 32, of Coles Bay, was nominated for the award by community members, for his efforts in ridding the tourist resort of plastic bags. The town has since become a model for community-based environmental campaigners throughout Australia.Mr Kearney accepted his award during Australia Day festivities in Canberra, and says he will share it...

CBS News today carried a story saying that San Francisco officials believe that the city spends 5.2 cents per bag annually for street litter pickup and 1.4 cents per bag for extra recycling costs.San Francisco may become the first city in the United States to charge shoppers for grocery bags. The city's environmental commission is expected to ask the mayor and board of supervisors Tuesday to consider a 17 cent per bag charge on paper and plastic grocery bags. Their goal is to reduce plastic b...

Malta today imposed a tax on plastic bags. Smart guys. They have one of the most beautiful environments in the world and they intend to keep it that way. Amazing how the little countries catch on fast. God was so kind to the US in so many ways, but their government doesn’t seem to have caught on to such a simple logic. Plastic bags are bad for your environment. Taxing them reduces usage sharply. So, instead of raising taxes and making everyone pay for cleaning up that problem, why not focus t...