The Battle Against Plastic
THE global battle against plastic has taken a draconian turn with officials in Delhi announcing that the penalty for carrying a polythene shopping bag would be five years in prison.
Officials in India's capital have decided that the only way to stem the rising tide of rubbish is to outlaw the plastic shopping bag. According to the official note on Friday, the "use, storage and sale" of plastic bags of any kind or thickness will be banned.
The new guideline means that customers, shopkeepers, hoteliers and hospital staff face a 100,000 rupee ($A3000) fine and possible jail time for using non-biodegradable bags.
Delhi has been steadily filling up with plastic bags in recent years as the economy has boomed and Western-style shopping malls have sprung up in the city.
There are no reliable figures on bag use, but environmentalists say more than 10 million are used in the capital every day.
Source: THE AGE - Randeep Ramesh, Delhi GUARDIAN
Officials in India's capital have decided that the only way to stem the rising tide of rubbish is to outlaw the plastic shopping bag. According to the official note on Friday, the "use, storage and sale" of plastic bags of any kind or thickness will be banned.
The new guideline means that customers, shopkeepers, hoteliers and hospital staff face a 100,000 rupee ($A3000) fine and possible jail time for using non-biodegradable bags.
Delhi has been steadily filling up with plastic bags in recent years as the economy has boomed and Western-style shopping malls have sprung up in the city.
There are no reliable figures on bag use, but environmentalists say more than 10 million are used in the capital every day.
Source: THE AGE - Randeep Ramesh, Delhi GUARDIAN
A Quick LookThis is our Winter 2011 Multimedia Capstone Project Group website. Throughout the term we will have a virtual discussion on the Plastic vs. Paper topic. We have already brought some great information together on our blog, http://www.ecomerge.blogspot.com/, as well. Enjoy!
The Bright IdeaDDB L.A. created this mockumentary for Southern California's coastal environmental group, Heal the Bay. The video, narrated by Jeremy Irons, shows the life cycle of the plastic bag, from grocery store to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. According to the organization, 19 billion bags are used every year, creating over 123,000 tons of unnecessary waste, and less than five percent of all single-use bags are recycled, with many ending up in the Pacific's gyre of plastic.
Music: Wojahn Brothers Music |
SurveyBlog of the WeekMost people have heard of plastic bags killing marine life, or seen pictures of a bird with a chunk of plastic stuck around its beak. I know that it happens and I hear about it every once in a while, but I never knew the extent to which rogue plastic bags affected wildlife. I looked at a site, plasticbageconomics.com, that shows the staggering amount...
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