In the entire garbage debate, the role of the ubiquitous plastic bag has hardly been discussed in Goa. But it's a serious issue. We have a law which is supposted to control their use, but is hardly ever implemented.
For instance: * Plastic shopping bags have a surprisingly significant environmental impact for something so seemingly innocuous. As well as being an eyesore (next time you are outside, have a look around - you'll be amazed at the number of plastic bags littering our streets and waterways), plastic shopping bags kill large numbers of wildlife each year. In the water, plastic bags can be mistaken for jellyfish by wildlife. This makes plastic bag pollution in marine environments particularly dangerous, as birds, whales, seals and turtles ingest the bags then die from intestinal blockages. Disturbingly, it is claimed that plastic bags are the most common man-made item seen by sailors at sea. Source: http://www.abc.net.au/science/features/bags/default.htm * Every year, around 500 billion plastic bags are used worldwide. 500,000,000,000. Five hundred followed by nine zeros. That's a lot of bags. So many that over one million bags are being used every minute and they're damaging our environment. * Plastic bags are difficult and costly to recycle and most end up on landfill sites where they take around 300 years to photodegrade. They break down into tiny toxic particles that contaminate the soil and waterways and enter the food chain when animals accidentally ingest them. But the problems surrounding waste plastic bags starts long before they photodegrade. Our planet is becoming increasingly contaminated by our unnecessary use of plastic bags. http://www.finetuning.com/articles/1604-plastic-bag-pollution.html * Today, the pollution resulting from plastic bags has become a big threat to urban environment. The daily use of free bags in supermarkets is tremendous in number. According to a related report, Lianhua and Hualian, the two major supermarkets in Shanghai, used 720,000 and 300,000 plastic shopping bags respectively each day. Most of them were reused as containers for household waste, with the rest thrown away, which led to pollution.http://www.bjreview.com.cn/200401/Forum.htm In India, the plastics lobby was promising change way back in 1998. See this: "Fearing ban, plastic bag-makers ready to abide by pollution". But, of course, it proved to be only meaningless talk. http://www.expressindia.com/fe/daily/19980830/24255344.html When the bag with groceries from our village supermarket is delivered home, I once counted it contained 17 plastic bags! Nobody seems to have noticed a touch of irony when Saligao villagers (and the local panchayat) embark on a 'garbage collection drive' (mainly plastics). The waste from the village is collected and taken to some other (mostly unknown) destination, where it is presumably dumped. On the other hand, Saligao's hillock is the route for garbage dumping from the Calangute-Candolim belt, part of which then gets washed down with the rains into the village each monsoon! So, needless to say, consuming less (or zero, if possible) plastics is the only answer. It means taking a bag with you when you go shopping. A durable bag is available at the market for Rs 12 or so. It has almost become a kind of game for me, in this sea of plastics, to avoid it as far as possible. At one recent meeting linked to the environment (outside Goa), there were a number of plastic bottles and cups being used for water and tea. Staying without a cup of tea didn't kill anyone, right? If you talk to shopkeepers, they readily agree with you. But, they blame the consumer who demands plastics. What's more, they'll tell you lengthy stories about people dumping garbage in plastic bags, along their village roadside. Yet, they'll keep on handing out plastics liberally to everyone who asks. Like everything else in life, the "culprit" is "someone else" and not ourselves! Even at airports, which are supposedly utilised by the well-heeled, you can come across people asking, "May I have another plastic bag" at the bookstall. Of course, the plastic is free; it's only the environment that pays the price. Most educated people too don't seem aware of the impact that plastics have on their lives. Waiting for everyone to get conscious about this reality is like waiting for doomsday. The latter might come earlier, considering the way in which we are consuming... plastics. In Goa, we lived without the plastic bag for half our lives. We can surely carry on doing so, so that our children's future isn't clogged with this threat. Shouldn't the authorities be strictly implementing the anti-plastics law? Or is the plastic lobby so strong that nothing can be done to curb this rape of the environment? --FN (Frederick Noronha) -- ---------------------------------------------------------- Frederick 'FN' Noronha | [EMAIL PROTECTED] Independent Journalist | http://fn.swiki.net Goa, India | +91(832)2409490 Cell 9822122436 ----------------------------------------------------------
