The Plastic Bag Ban, a year on.

Many things in garbage bins are no longer bagged. There were numerous blowflies around this bin.

Not so long ago, we hardly ever saw blowflies around bins. 

Decades ago, of course, before rubbish started being routinely bagged,  it was usual.  There are not nearly as many flies now as there were then, but, I think, more now than there was a year ago.

Some people are using the 'Re-usable' plastic bags to contain their rubbish, reduce odours and limit the breeding of flies. But they are made of much heavier plastic, which will take longer to break down, and they are far more difficult to tie off.  They are not as useful as what were erroneously called 'single use' plastic bags.



The ban has given rise to some odd contradictions.  A volunteer in an Op Shop started to routinely put some items in a plastic bag taken from the bin kept handy, when she suddenly scrambled the bags out of sight, and used a much heavier plastic bag instead.  The 'single use' plastic bags could no longer be re-used on penalty of a large fine.

Those who sincerely want to reduce plastic waste, and those who noisily say they care for the environment but only want to tell everyone of their virtue, have chosen the wrong target.
They should have targeted the totally unnecessary plastic wrapping that so many of our things come in. They are truly 'single-use.'  Or maybe they should have targeted those giveaway plastic toys that one of the supermarkets handed out to customers as a way to distract from their annoyance at the reduced convenience when shopping.

One of the stated reasons for reducing the use of plastic bags was supposed to be to reduce the numbers of them going into the ocean, and littering our beaches.

And behold.  No plastic bags in the ocean, no plastic bags littering the beaches. (Some seaweed.)

Except that that photograph was taken several years ago.  In most places in Australia, most people do not leave a great deal of litter.  In the litter that is left, for example after a music festival, or after the Climate Protest by brainwashed children, there was a lot of litter. But only a very small component of that litter was plastic bags. It never has been a big problem in Australia.

Yes, I have seen awful pictures of litter covering the ocean.  But blame the ones who allow this.  The virtue-signalers, as always, are missing the mark.


Postscript 23rd March, 2020.

And now we have a Pandemic.  Is the Virus being spread at the supermarket checkout?  Probably.  Will the hygienic practice of using new plastic bags come back?  I very much hope so!  

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