Ban on plastic bags a noble move

FOR all shoppers, plastic bags are the most convenient mode to take their shopping away – it is cheap, strong and easy to carry.
Once at home, it is reused for marketing, packing and for rubbish.
Whatever it’s used for, plastic bags do not just disappear when you toss them away.
They are everywhere – at bus stops, along the roadside or sometimes on the roads, in drains and waterways, and on fences – often abandoned and at the mercy of the wind.
And there the bags take on a new role – a polluting nuisance.
Plastic is lasting in modern society, but that is no reason not to try to limit the wastefulness and blight from its overuse.
And that has been a concern over the past years prompting the body responsible for protecting the environment – Conservation and Environment Protection Authority (Cepa) – to lead a campaign against the use of plastic bags.
The Government in 2014 banned the import and manufacture of non-biodegradable plastic shopping bags. It allowed only the manufacture and import of biodegradable plastic shopping bags.
Things had not moved along as expected and this time round, the Government will impose a levy on the manufacture and import of plastic bags to discourage its use.
Thanks to the determined efforts by environmentally minded advocates and politicians, PNG is poised to join the growing roster of places that have taken on the bane of plastic shopping bags.
Some 20 million tonnes of plastic pollution enters the oceans each year, and it’s devastating the marine environment.
Plastic litter is also costly.
Some will say that plastic shopping bags make up only a tiny portion of the plastics that go into landfills, or that banning plastic bags is not necessarily always the best environmental outcome. However, no individual action will solve the plastic marine litter crisis, but swift implementation of these policies can have a huge positive effect in reducing a critical environmental problem.
Environment, Conservation and Climate Change Minister John Pundari says the decision was made for the greater good of the people and the country.
Pundari said scientists had found traces of plastic in fish, turtles and other marine animals at micro level.
And plastic is a toxic chemical which is harmful to health.
With that, the Government had to take that stand as most of our coastal communities as well as inland people depend on fish for food.
The shoppers must now start using clear string bilums (woven bags) or eco bags, which are already being sold in major supermarkets.
The authorities now have the challenge of raising awareness on this ban and asking businesses not to take string bilums and baskets off shoppers, especially the womenfolk who will use them to pack their shopping.
Shops may start using paper bags.
The ban’s reasoning, and its sensible exemptions, are on target.
And its goal – coastlines less blighted by rustling blossoms of abandoned plastic – cannot be nobler.