Let us support govt by not using plastic bags

Editorial

COME November, the outright ban on all single-use plastic shopping bags will come into effect.
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. The Government then imposed a levy on the manufacture and import of plastic bags to discourage it being used.
Just recently, Environment, Conservation and Climate Change Minister Geoffrey Kama announced he wanted to see the ban enforced within three months.
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.
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 plastic shopping bags are a very, very tiny proportion of the plastics going into landfill or 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 could have a huge positive effect in reducing a critical environmental problem.
The decision was made for the greater good of the people and the country. Scientists found, in recent researches traces of plastic in fish, turtles and other marine animals at a micro level.
And plastics is a toxic chemical which is harmful to human health. With that, the Government had to take that stand as most of our coastal communities as well as inland people dependent on fish resource for their daily livelihoods, it is important that the government take appropriate actions to address the issue.
The shoppers must now start using clear string bilums (woven bags) or the eco bags which are already being sold in major supermarkets.
Concerned authorities now have the challenge of raising awareness on this ban when it comes into effect at the same time, asking businesses not to take string bilums and baskets off shoppers, especially the womenfolk who will use them to pack their shopping.
Some shops have used paper bags to pack groceries.
The bill’s reasoning, and its sensible exemptions, are on target. And its goal — coastlines less blighted by rustling blossoms of abandoned plastic — could not be nobler.
Let us all support the Government by not using plastic bags and be responsible with our trash.