Plastic bags are free, convenient, versatile, re-usable and through a voluntary program Australians apparently use nearly 50 percent less of them than we did three years ago.
But from 2009 you will need to pay for every plastic bag you take from a supermarket if you live in Victoria. Why? Because they are apparently a “as symbol of our inefficient use of resources”.
I’ve glean this information from an article in yesterday’s The Australian entitled Plastic Bagging by their new environment reporter Matthew Warren.
The article also mentions that even with generous definitions of environmental hazard for plastic bags, the cost of imposing various bans on their use is about four times greater than the environmental benefit.
So why is the Victorian government going to ban their free distribution from 2009 and how are plastic bags a symbol of inefficient resource use?
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I’ve previously blogged on biodegradable plastic bags: http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/000993.html .
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
I saw some estimate of the embodied materials & expected lifespan (durability) of those green shopper replacement bags everyone but me carries and it seems they may be worse, or at least no better, than humble plastic grocery bags.
Also seems on total lifecycle cost, it’s a close race between paper bags & thin plastic bags but don’t grill me on the assumptions that were used to reach that conclusion! Personally I rather we logged (ahem, sustainably) & used paper bags – much more degradable than plastic.
Inefficient if people who used them as garbage bags then don’t get any & buy garbage bags instead.
Bans/prices need to extend to non-grocery retail bags as often they’re thicker more durable plastic, although fewer in total number I expect.
As for symbols of inefficiency, there are probably many worse ones around us.
Eg Obese people are a symbol of inefficiency and we’re topping the world on that count now. State govts should tax obese people – think of the resources they waste, plastic bags they use and health costs they put on tax payers. Yep. a tax per kilo over normal BMI.
One reason i can think if as to why the green bags are better than the usual plastic bags is they don’t blow and float around, and are probably then less likely to pose to get into rivers and oceans and pose a threat to marine life.
Not something i’ve really looked into though.
JEn do you have a link to any study that quantifies the environmental hazard as a cost? Interested to see the methodology for determining that the cost is 4 times worse than the env benefit, and how they could determine that.
To state the obvious — and I say obvious because I feel like you could get this response by asking anyone on the street… They are a symbol of inefficient resource use because many of them aren’t reused or recycled. Ie. if plastic bags were made from a resource like steel the inefficient use of plastic bags wouldn’t be in question. Just because plastic bags are cheap and don’t take up much space doesn’t mean we use them efficiently.
Is your argument that Warren’s comment is incorrect or misleading? Would you be happier if the article in The Australian had’ve said they’re a “symbol of inefficient not-very-biodegradable resource use”?
Is your argument that this is stupid because it’s a kind of “symbolic” change rather than a change that will positively impact on the environment? From a strictly practical viewpoint I’d agree, but from a more holistic viewpoint it makes a lot of sense. Living sustainably will take a change in public consciousness about the way we use resources. This is one such effort to change public consciousness and therein lies its value.
Dear Pinxi
It amazes me that a State government should consider charging people for using plastic bags from supermarkets (the cost of bags is incorporated into the overall supermarket charges…and after all there is no such thing as a free lunch).
In recent years I have noticed that supermarket check-out operators are cramming more items in each bag so that the bags when you get home are full of holes and useless for storing waste prior to placing it in the bin.
So my current response is to buy garbage bags…net impact on landfill etc. etc. nil.
And I guess the canny shopper in future will compare the cost of the supermarket bag with the cost of buying the bags in the supermarket and telling the check-out operator to fill them up.
So the end result on the environment will be zero but the legislation will provide a nice warm glow for those political clowns seeking votes from a group who may help them get over the line.
Blair
The bags are not so much a “as symbol of our inefficient use of resources” as an opportunity to cadge more money out of the public. It isn’t much different from imposing a carbon tax, really.
If a money-raising campaign is dressed in Green garb, many will give their money away without another thought, and even get a warm fuzzy feeling. Greenpeace has this strategy down pat.
But Blair,
Is the argument against plastic bags about landfill? Or is it about pollution, esp marine pollution? Your garbage bags are far less likely to make it to the ocean than countless shopping bags, unless you have a habit of tearing them off the roll and floating them out into the street.
Dear Steve
If the argument is about marine pollution than presumably you would make shoppers pay for the bags in localities near the shore. But in Victoria,in Ballarat, Hamilton, Shepparton, Bairnsdale? Surely one is using a big sledgehammer to crack a small nut.
My shopping bags have the same chance of making into the waterways as purchased bags…namely zero.
Blair
The Spring 2004 edition of Nature Australia contains an article about plastics and seabirds. It says plastics make up 66-80 per cent of all marine litter and at least 44% of seabird species are known to ingest it. A major problem identified in the article is that parent birds inadvertently regurgitate plastic as well as food when feeding their chicks. This can result in death of the chicks.
Animals, including platypuses in our rivers, can become entangled in plastic bags and die as a result. Since “Ballarat, Hamilton, Shepparton and Bairnsdale” have rivers and lakes the problem of plastic bags is just as great in these places as it is in coastal areas.
Kitchen scraps etc can be wrapped in old newspaper as an alternative to plastic bags, . Presumably this is what folk did in the days before plastic bag omnipresence.
I recycle my old plastic bag many times, I think that is the least I could do to help the environment.
Basically. I don’t think this environmentalism is about big things for an environmentalist. You don’t need to be out campaigning to haha save the world.
No , it is all about little personal steps. I have a very good example from Sweden. If just everyone changed their shower mouthpiece to a more energy efficient one, we could close down a whole nuclear reactor.
Blair & others – agreed the quality of the shopping bags does limit the extent to which they can be recycled, but generally they’re ok for rubbish. However most shoppers DO get more than they can re-use (as I think lisa said).
Blair I think (could be wrong) that many plastic shopping bags wash down stormwater drains into waterways & oceans so it’s not just a matter for waterside areas. Most of us live near to coasts anyway, and those bags also fly a long way on winds as trees near some rubbish dumps have previously shown.
Steve, another problem I have with the green (coles) shoppers is their bulk means you leave them in the car (or bicycle paniers!), so are less likely to have them handy, esp for those little purchases. I carry a strong lightweight fabric bag or 2, that folds down to nothing so it’s always in my handbag. And it holds twice as much or more than a plastic shopping bag. You can get nice little silk numbers to carry about on your person too! Perhaps they could double as a decorative gentleman’s pocket kerchief!
Will biodegradable plant-based plastic bags become cheaper than petroleum based bags in the future?
I hear you pinxi. i couldn’t get the hang of using green bags most of the time until i discovered the little zip-up ones, that fold down to the size of a wallet. I keep two in my work bag, so if i happen to do some shopping on the way home from work, i have two bags with me.
If you want a plastice bag in a German supermarket, you pay for it – between 10-25c a bag..
George, the germans have a lot of other policies, just as silly as that one.
It is becoming doubtful that they will get out of the mess such policies have precipitated.
Re steve m
The information from nature Australia raises more questions than it answers-
“plastics make up 66-80 per cent of all marine litter” – is that plastic shopping bags or plastics of any source?
“at least 44% of seabird species are known to ingest it” – but what is the incidence of harmful ingestion by these species? To what extent is this species threatening or dos it add to the background noise of hazards faced by these animals? What is the extent of this damage (ie are there robust estimates of the benefit arising from banning plastic bags) and does it outweigh the costs of removing a useful product the bulk of which does not end up in the marine environment. If removing this damage does outweigh the benefits from use of plastic bags, are there better policies than a ban?
For example, the Productivity Commission recently suggested that plastic shopping bag bans were inefficient and that it would be better to target plastic bag litter through increased enforcement and fine activity.
Unless we are staring down the barrel of species annihilation (which I strongly doubt) that approach seems more reasonable than a ban. Especially given the manifest benefit from cheap, clean shopping bags (even when not re-used).
I think its great that we have a productivity commission. But lets not pretend they are infallible.
Better to target plastic bag litter through increased enforcement and fine activity!?
Common sense alone should tell you that with something as prolific as plastic bags that are also easy to lose or get blown about, fines and enforcement will not do much at all to alleviate pollution.
hasbeen: “George, the germans have a lot of other policies, just as silly as that one. It is becoming doubtful that they will get out of the mess such policies have precipitated.”
whatchyaonabouthasbeen?
care to substantiate, rationalise in any depth?
Did you read previous exchange (recent thread) about liberties in Europe you do’nt enjoy in Aust?
Or about some of the social limitations in Germany being imposed upon it by WWII victors?
So far, no-one has provided a list of liberties you enjoy in Aust that aren’t available in Europe or Germany.
I’ll add another to the list of liberties one enjoys in europe: unrestricted broadband and generally, less contractual obligation on your ICT! Generally you pay according to bandwidth (speed) in europe, in Aust too but here they all cap your total monthly usage, over which they strangle it &/or charge like a wounded bull. That policy doesn’t match the wholesale basis for the supply of internet bandwidth – it’s an unnecessary restriction. Ditto for the lengthy contractual obligations to get a mobile phone in aust – much more flexible, more choice in Europe where you can get a post-paid account without having to enter a contract.
Silly policies/socialist restrictions my butthole! Put your explanation where your mouth is.
Steve
The PC approach may not be 100% effective when compared to a ban but show me how a costly ban would have clear net benefits? The pro-banners want to use a sledge hammer to crack a nut. Something targeted at the problem is more sensible.
Steve – if you are Steve M – you didn’t answer any of the questions I posed.
(I’m not Steve M)
I think a ban is targetted squarely at the problem of plastic bags contributing to marine pollution, and over time would greatly reduce plastic bag pollution.
I think there is a bigger question of the cost, rather than the benefit, though. I don’t know how you would compare the cost of marine pollution to the cost of plastic bags, and whether or not it would weigh up as a net good.
For me, its no problem to use the green bags (i actually like having more cupboard space not filled with huge quantities of plastic bags that i haven’t used for bin lining yet) so i use the green bags, and the minor cost to get them hasn’t bothered me.
Steve
If you think a total ban on the use of a product constitutes a targeted response then I’d hate to be the one responsible for cleaning up the floor around your toilet bowl.
The PC draft report on waste management (page 188) says that extent to which plastic bags harm Australia’s marine wildlife is very uncertain (an often quoted figure of worldwide marine animal deaths of 100,000 a year is based on one study from Canada in the 1980s) but what is certain is that few bags end up in the marine environment – less than 1% of bags become litter – so far fewer would end up in the marine environment.
Cost benefit analyses of this type of problem are undertaken all the time. The Allen Consulting Group analysis for the EPHC that found that the economic and environmental costs exceed the benefits by a wide margin can be found at:
http://www.ephc.gov.au/pdf/Plastic_Bags/PlasticBags_ACG_LWPB_May06.pdf
Thanks Stephen.
A couple of comments.
How much less than 1%? Because 1% of bags would translate to a *lot* of plastic litter in the marine environment! According to Clean Up Australia (http://www.cleanup.com.au/au/Campaigns/plastic-bag-facts.html) Australia uses over 6.5 billion bags per year. Clean Up reckon they collect 500,000 bags per year on clean up australia day.
Cost-benefit analysis that seek to compare the public or environmental good of a policy with the economic cost of implementation may be attempted increasingly often, but you are exaggerating the possible objectivity and acceptance of such analyses. I’ve seen and participated in several such analyses, and i’m yet to see one that i would say of it “gee that document was really worth reading”. This is *the* problem for our society when it comes to dealing with environmental problems – how do you put a price on them?
IF you don’t believe me on this, take a read of the chapter on assessing environmental costs in the Allen report you linked to, and have a laugh/cry as you do. Don’t miss them labelling the social impact as an ‘x-factor’ that they can’t quantify! They used the term ‘x-factor’!?!?!
As an aside, consulting firms (not just Allen Consulting) seem to have a market for their pedalled offerings because for some reason mediocre or time-short public servants and lobbyists seem to think its a good idea to pay $50,000+ to produce reports that are of university assignment standard, with use of an expensive and exclusive economics model thrown in to give it a vague semblance of rigour (garbage in, garbage out applies). AT the moment, having the name of a consulting firm on a doc seems to be what you are paying for, so it looks kind of independent. From bitter personal experience, if you hire a consulting firm to write something for you, you have to spend a painful month correcting and improving the draft they provide, then communicating to them (because they are always either not real smart or else not willing to waste precious consulting hours fixing up their crap) why their report needed improving.
IT is my sincere hope that in the near future, most people will be sufficiently non-plussed by the appalling contributions to analysis that many consulting firms make, that they will either be put out of business, or else will be forced to lift their game markedly to stay viable.
Dear Steve
Perhaps you can suggest an objective source eg scientific studies of the impact of plastic bags of the environment in Australia. You have dismissed The Productivity Commision and Allen Consulting so who does muggins like me turn to?
Blair
Steve
Plastic bags in the marine environment would have to be a lot, lot less than the 1% that gets in the total litter stream.
So I agree with the PC that no ban should be implemented until its benefits are clearly shown to be biggger than its costs.
There is no solid evidence that this is the case.
All we get from the pro-banners are anecdotes about marine damage and little evidence.
Attempts to analyse the impacts are always imperfect but they do guide the decision making process better than hair shirt greenism.
There are many techniques for putting a price on environemntal services (hedonic pricing, stated preferences (willingness to pay, willingness to accept), travel cost methods and so on). That said there is much debate on such results – but this and the thought processes that are gone through in undertaking the analysis is much better than no analysis at all – which is what the EPHC appeared to want to do in the first place.
Your reference to the Allen report is also somewhat misleading – they do actually estimate the environmental benefits of plastic bag litter reduction based on revealed behaviour of clean up activity generously scaled up. Allen regards this as an overestimate of the benefits.
On that basis their estimate of the benefit of a total ban is $218m but with a cost of $1057 million.
When far more than 99% of this product doesn’t cause the problem being addressed then surely a better policy than a ban should be pursued?
Stephen – their method of estimating was a method allright, but one that is easily disputed.
In the end they do not estimate – they guess. They guessed the figure of $1 per plastic bag, and they guessed a value of clean up volunteers at $16/hour – now i don’t know about you, but i don’t spend every hour of my day working for $16 an hour. Thats because once i’ve made enough cash, my spare time and sleeping hours becomes extremely valuable, far more than $16 an hour. AFter working 5 days in the week, you’d need to pay me a lot lot more than $16 an hour to have me using up my spare time. Add to that that i think Clean up day is a great idea, but i’ve never participated, always been to busy or not found out about it and got organised. So the Allen method of using $16 an hour and clean up volunteers is just pub chatter.
And that is the problem i have with consultant reports like this – whats the points of paying tens of thousands of dollars to get a consulting firm to work out the cost benefit of a plastic bag ban using a complex economic model as the basis of the analysis, when they are simply guessing the environmental cost with a rudimentary comparison to clean up volunteers as a rough guide? Note they also did not attempt to estimate the social cost.
You quoted their costs and benefits to 3 and 4 significant figures just now. Tell me how many significant figures you think are appropriate when you are just guessing?
The Allen report provides the illusion of an analysis, when really all they do is calculate that is about a billion in costs, and a guess in benefits – they should have provided a range of possibilities, ie from $0 benefits (assuming like the market does that the environment has no value) up to well, a lot, maybe $10 billion (assuming the environment has high value).
In saying all this, i’m not saying i disagree. MAybe a bag ban is too expensive. I use green bags, because it is no trouble for me, but that’s just me, i see that.
The reason i am debating here is because i do not think that the allen report is any better than the ‘hair shirt greenism’ you speak of. Their report is dressed up as rigourous analyis, but is really just an expensive guess. (They can pay me to guess next time, i’ll charge half the price and call myself “Steve Consulting” using the MMRFBULLCR4P economic model that i developed myself).
The issue is muddied by values, as are many issues. Makes life tough for economists and PC commissions and consultants.
To illustrate: get the PC to do a cost benefit on the iraq war, or a cost benefit on banning stem cell research, or a cost benefit on removing snack machines from train stations, or on mandatory seat belts in cars or on having a movie classification system, or preventing sale of cigarettes to minors etc.
Marine pollution by plastic bags is a major problem.
Every dive trip I have been on I return to the boat with the pockets of my BCD full of plastic bag refuse collected during the dive and its the same if I am diving in the Red Sea or Sulawesi.
One example of how this refuse affects wildlife is that marine turtles often eat plastic bags mistaking them for the jellyfish which they predate on, these bags block the turtles gut and kill it.
If you are too lazy to carry a reusable bag (preferably un-bleached organic cotton) and too tight to pay for a biodegradable plastic one you will not get any sympathy from me.
Whinging on about cost / benefit ratios says it all.
All the studies show charging for plastic bags dramatically reduces their use and that means less litter, period.