bag ban

Despite a number of county and city level plastic bag bans that continue to appear with increasing frequency across the state of California, an effort to pass a bag ban into statewide law has died yet again at the hands of the Senate, KQED reporter Scott Detrow confirms. The recently defeated ban was only the latest manifestation of California's attempts to push a law limiting plastic use through the legislature.

California's legislators have a reputation for being environmentally aware and concerned, but Huffington Post blogger and environmental attorney Lisa Kaas Boyle paints a different picture of the supposedly "green" policies California politicians espouse. Boyle writes about a new Senate Bill with a familiar purpose, Senate Bill 405, which is the latest incarnation of the plastic bag ban bill which reappears regularly, and is consistently voted down.

Plastic bag bans have been the subject of much debate in America recently as a number of states have taken on the challenge of finding solutions to the growing, unsightly problem of plastic pollution. In a thought provoking article featured on the New York Times, correspondent Elizabeth Rosenthal discusses the controversy surrounding banning plastic bags in New York City. For many other cities, such as Seattle, San Francisco, and Dublin, a bag ban or tax was a simple new measure to adapt to. With barely a bag in sight, Rosenthal writes, life goes on.

The European Union is still debating the implementation of a plastic bag ban, but that hasn't stopped Finland from starting the process of changing attitudes single use bags, Finnish broadcasting company YLE reports. According to an article published on Monday, Finland has seen a 30% increase in the sales of reusable bags in the past year, alongside a growing general disapproval of single use bags. The article shares the opinions of a few Finnish shoppers, whose strong opinions regarding the use of disposable plastic bags support the spike in reusable bag sales:

The state of Massachusetts may be the first state in the United States of America to ban plastic bags if legislation currently being debated is passed, according to a report from NACS Online yesterday. The Environment, Natural Resources, and Agriculture Committee had a hearing on the House and Senate's proposed plastic bag bans during which no members of the plastics lobby came forward to speak out against the two versions of the legislation. According to the article:

The California Grocers Association announced its support for a bill today which proposes banning plastic bags across the entire state -- a move which has given the bill a significant public boost. The bill, SB 405, was introduced by Senator Alex Padilla (D- Pacoima) and would prohibit single use plastic bags from being distributed in pharmacies and grocery stores beginning January 1st, 2015. According to a Los Angeles Times article written by Marc Lifsher, convenience and liquor stores would face the same requirements the following year.

An article from the BBC yesterday marked the beginning of Northern Ireland's new tax on plastic carrier bags, which has now officially come into effect. The tax mandates that retailers must charge 5 pence for each new, single-use carrier bag that is handed out in shops, and these funds are sent directly to the Department of the Environment. The Department hopes that the fee will discourage the use of plastic bags by 80%, but they have also applied the fee to paper and starch-based bags in an effort to promote the usage of reusable bags across the board. According to the article:

In an article that appeared on the Sunday Times this week, a man was detained by the police in Rwanda after being caught smuggling a shipment of polythene bags into the country, which are considered an environmental hazard by the Rwandan government. According to correspondent Laurent Kamana, the man was found in possession of 200 packets of the plastic bags, amounting to approximately 40,000 pieces in total. The suspect, identified as Maurice Bizumuremyi, brought the bags in from Burundi, and was taking them to a client in Kimironko, Kigali City. Kamana reports:

A plastic bag ban in Hawaii has been applauded as a success story in an article on West Hawaii Today, which shared that the recently instituted plastic bag ban has reduced plastic bag usage, with 80% of shoppers now bringing their own bags. Reporter Nancy Cook Lauer writes that staff surveys were conducted in supermarkets across West and East Hawaii, and the results showed a greater acceptance of the bag ban than on Maui or Kauai. According to the article, reusable bag usage was at just 13% before the ban's implementation, displaying a huge increase. Writes Lauer:

The Malawi government has issued a ban on the importation of plastics with a thickness of less than 60 micron meters, determining that these bags are often disposed of after use, and therefore not environmentally friendly. According to a reported from the Nyasa Times, Malawi's government had concerns regarding the way these single-use plastic bags were eliminated. Because they are thin, these bags are often burned after use, contributing to a widespread problem of hazardous open burning practices. According to Dr.