SA Plastic Bag Ban
Is Your Green Shopping Bag really Green?
Jan 1 2009 ABC News...
From today South Australian retailers have to provide alternatives to lightweight plastic bags, before a full ban starts in May.Most retailers are offering the alternate "green bag" but now The Australian Retailers Association says that:
The green bags are five times greater in carbon footprint than a plastic bagSo what to do???
They also have their environmental issues and this is just an inconvenience that South Australians will have to put up with.
Make some bags out of scrap cotton fabric you have at home!!Like these I made from the Tutorial on this link
Or re-vamp an old canvas backpack...like I did with Doc's old Uni bag!
(It's OK I bought him a new one)
Or we could use the calico bags that we buy our bread flour in. They even come with handles and a draw string. I find them a bit long for shopping but use them to store potatoes, the containers for our home made ice cream, our Mouli Food Mill lives in the cupboard inside one as does the Sausage maker. Doc even has old cloths for cleaning stored in them in his workshop as well as other stuff.I also use them to make shorts for Doc!
When these Cotton and Calico bags are worn out
they can go on the compost heap!
Where will the old green bags go?
they can go on the compost heap!
Where will the old green bags go?
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12 comments:
Does '5 times the carbon footprint' mean 5 times over the life of the bag or 5 times in the production? I've got 5+ year old green bags and they have saved 1000s of disposable bags, I can't see how that isn't coming out in front!
Hi Groverjones
Yes they have to be better than plastic bags but apart from the Retailer's Ass having a whinge these bags apparently aren't recycled here in Aust and are sent overseas for recycling. I think that's where the footprint issue lies.
There is an interesting discussion about this on 'Green At Work"
I love the old fashioned string bags - am trying to find them, they last for years and stretch like crazy!
Hi scarecrow wishing you and doc a very happy new year. Your post on plastic bags made me smile.In Ireland we have had a plastic bag levy for about 5 years,another dictat from the EU. Plastic bags are still available but have to be paid for, 22cents at the moment.It has cut down on the use of them somewhat but have not eliminated them.I love your flour bags, no longer used here, mores the pity as they were really recyclable. My grandmother made sheets and pillowcases from them!
Best wishes
peggy
Hi sweetie, HNY to you both.
I too have often questioned where the green bags go after they leave my hands and then are used in Pat's shed until he wears out the last bits of the bag.
Hi Cosmic
I'm glad to see you ordered some of those string bags on that link I sent you. I hope they are as good as they look!
Estring Bags
Hiya Lucky1
All the best for 2009 to you and yours too!
Hey you'll be able to have fun making some bags now too with all that fabric you bought! You're going great guns with your sewing.
Hi Peggy
Thanks for the wishes and I hope your family has a great 2009 as well!
You are another one who'll be able to make some great bags too...that patchwork on you made for that Christmas gift was great.
That plastic bag levy would make a difference to the cost of a big shopping trip...but I guess that makes sure folks bring their own!
What an excellent point you make! Most of these hessian and jute bags are made in sweat shops somewhere in the world (for a pittance) and flown over so that the supermarkets can sell them for a profit. I always re-use supermarket plastic bags for bin liners and doggy waste bags. Most of them are now made from recycled plastic and are biodegradable anyway.
Happy New Year! Thanks for the link to the sewing directions for the shopping bag!
Cloth bags are great, and relatively easy to make, but anything re-usable, and re-used, has got to be better than plastic used just once. I wish there were a money cost to using plastic bags here in the U.S. But - re: Matron's comment - plastic is plastic is plastic, and, as such, non biodegradable. Even re-cycled plastic.
Hi Judy
Have fun making some bags!
Hi Matron
Folks over here are starting to panic about not having access to shopping bags for lining their bins...They don't seem to remember life without them. Some are even stockpiling them...
I wonder if you are referring to the corn starch bags that are around these days...they to break down but growing corn for reasons other than food is having an impact on the world these days too!
I'm looking forward to May when the total ban comes in over here. If nothing else it will stop people insisting upon having a bag to put an already over packaged item into!
Thanks Scarecrow..... trying and enjoying the new sewing/craft room.
Hi,
Green bags can be used as weed mat. For example, I used one to make sure my mint doesn't get out and take over the other herbs in my herb garden.
Looks like weed mat, works like weed mat! :-)
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