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February 02, 2006

Just plain common sense

Plastic bags cause harm to the environment. Governments have to spend lots of money containing this harm. Who should pay for this? The community as a whole?

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Definitely not, says Bruno Oberle, head of Switzerland’s Federal Environment Office, “Polluters must pay; they cannot be allowed to off load the costs on to others. Otherwise you get a distortion of prices, and of the rules governing a market economy. Correctives must therefore be introduced”. This was published at www.swissinfo.org in an article called Being Green is Good for Business

Ireland had the right idea. They introduced a tax on plastic bags and consumption feel 90% in just one year.

Just plain common sense. You do wrong, you’re made to pay, you quickly correct your behaviour.

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