It's the only planet we have folks!

The Independent, UK, in a recent article notes that companies are now more concerned than ever about environmental issues.

The smart ones know they have to be, because their consumers are driving them to thinking.

“Shoppers are becomingly increasingly frustrated by the voluminous packaging that fills their bins when they unwrap food.

That irritation has been picked up in research. Consumers shouldering the hassle and moral unease about generating this vast, obvious waste could choose to patronise street markets that are cheaper and less wasteful.

Consumers aren’t just annoyed because packaging is awkward, many are worried about the environment. And big companies are only too aware that, with climate change rapidly rising up the political and public agenda, green issues cannot be ignored.”

If that ain’t good news, what is?

An article in today’s Yomiuri Shimbun said 55% of Japanese shoppers want plastic bags to be taxed.

They voted to support a government plan to reduce garbage by having supermarkets and other retailers charge customers for plastic bags, according to the results of a Cabinet Office survey.

Only 22 percent disagreed with the plan, the office said.

Talk about a mature society. Contrast this with California, where a majority appear to be against a tax, and India, where people flout the laws against plastic bags every day.

One million plastic bags are being thrown away every minute of the day and night. This is endangering the lives of animals and marine creatures all over the world and putting an unbearable burden on our planet.

No wonder the Japanese succeed at everything they do. The world has a lot to learn from them.

Plastic bags offer a utility for just a few minutes and the cost of that convenience is way too high. Reusable cloth bags are the answer. See how economical and attractive they are at http://www.badlani.com/bags

Scotland is fortunate to have media that have taken cognizance of the harm that plastic bags do to the environment.

The Edinburgh Evening News has taken up this issue and launched a 6 week campaign through the city's major supermarkets to encourage more shoppers to buy stronger re-usable bags costing a few pence each.

The campaign is being spearheaded by the environmental group Waste and Resource Action Programme, with Edinburgh chosen as one of two UK cities to pilot the scheme. If it is successful and enough shoppers are persuaded to switch it may be rolled out to other cities.

A 10p tax on plastic bags is under discussion at the moment. Such a bag tax would raise an estimated £450,000 each year.

Across the Irish Sea the "plastax" as it has become known has seen the demand for plastic bags fall by a staggering 90 per cent.

The problem is gigantic.

In the UK alone supermarkets give away 17.5 billion of them a year, with the average shopper taking home around seven each week. Six out of ten shoppers in Edinburgh arrive at supermarkets and shops expecting to be given free bags to ferry the shopping home.

Most inevitably end up in the dustbin and ultimately find their way to a landfill site where this buried rubbish will take more than 100 years to decompose.

Until the late 70’s no one gave away plastic bags - and everyone either managed with a paper bag or carried a tote.

The world chugged along just fine and folks shopped as enthusiastically as they do today.

The doomsday types claim folks will stop shopping if they aren’t given free plastic bags. Utter nonsense. Check with the folks in Ireland. Have they all closed up shop and gone home? Are you kidding?

Plastic bags are just a habit. If they aren’t available, people will not even think of them. That babe who needs a new outfit for next Saturday is going to buy that outfit. You think she goes shopping because she gets a free shopping bag?

Especially when she can carry her shopping home in a lovely reusable cloth bag; the type you’ll see at http://www.badlani.com/bags

This morning my daughter Kaajal got a mail from a customer in Akron, Ohio, which said this

“I am absolutely delighted! Please let us put a testimonial on your web site. You have been wonderful to work with, and the product is terrific. I'm still amazed that in this new world of ours we have managed to find our product in India and buy it with the same ease as driving to the nearest town. Thanks so much, Ellen”

You made our day, Ellen. Thank you! This is what we live for – to please our customers.

We’re proud that we make very good bags, but we’re even more proud that someone in Akron, Ohio finds it so easy to work with us.

Please send us a picture of yourself with your bag, Ellen. Meanwhile, here’s a picture of Kaajal in her office which I took as she was inspecting a bag before it went to a customer.

You’ll find a large variety of bags shown at our website http://www.badlani.com/bags Talk to us. We’ll do everything we can to make you feel the same way Ellen does.

City councils everywhere today have to address the question of what to do with discarded plastic bags.

Collecting them and transporting them to landfills is costing money. Lots of it. So much, in fact, that California calculated the cost at 17 cents per bag.

 

So, they proposed a tax of 17 cents per plastic bag. There is much opposition because citizens feel the cost of shopping will go up.

Perhaps councils could look at other examples of how some communities across the world have addressed this problem.

Ireland imposed a tax and cut plastic bag usage by 90%. Clearly, popular or not, it works. Taiwan has cut plastic bag usage 80%.

But some Australian communities have succeeded followed the voluntary route.

The city of Coles Bay led the way with local bakery owner Ben Kearney pushing for a reusable bag that every citizen bought and used. Coles Bay just celebrated their 1st plastic free anniversary and they believe they’ve saved their community from using more than 350000 plastic bags. Ben won the Tasmanian of the Year award for his efforts.

Fitzroy Falls is another Australian community that has proudly declared itself plastic bag free. They got local students to do designs and ordered bags that citizens bought through local retailers.

Then, 13 city councils got together under the Northern Inland Regional Waste Group and invested in buying 86,000 reusable fabric bags to be given away free to all their citizens. Everyone is proudly using them and they’ve also become virtually plastic bag free.

Granted, these are small communities where it is easier to get consensus.

Most American city council managers will be surprised to hear that some US communities have also succeeded in ridding themselves of plastic bags.

Galena, Alaska, a village of 850 also banned plastic bags. With a grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the council handed out 2,000 free canvas bags and phased out plastics in the town's three stores. To date, nearly 40 other Alaskan villages have followed suit, said Bill Stokes of Palmer, Alaska, who helped formulate many of the bans with the state's Department of Environmental Conservation.

Most Americans have the impression that reusable bags are expensive. They aren’t. Particularly when imported in bulk.

At http://www.badlani.com/bags you will see more than a dozen alternatives that can be got at less than a dollar each.

Amitabh Bachan, one of India’s most popular movie stars, hosts KBC (Kaun Banega Crorepati), and it is watched by an audience of many millions.

Yesterday evening I was thrilled to hear him start the show by asking folks to think about what happens to all the plastic bags they throw away.

As a people we are notoriously unconcerned about civic issues (look how clean everyone’s homes are on the inside and see how they carelessly throw garbage right outside their own doors).

But what the Big B says is considered gospel and I hope people paid attention to what he was saying.

Thank you, Amitabh.

We need lots and lots of influential people like you speaking up on the subject.

The sad thing is that everyone appears to think that paper bags are the only alternative. They’re not and because they are used just once, they are also wasteful. Reusable cloth bags are a much better answer.

See a vast array at http://www.badlani.com/bags

The Indian state of Jharkhand announced a ban on the use of plastic bags within a two km radius of religious and tourist place.

"Plastic bags are harming animals and are a problem at religious places. They have been banned under the Environment Law 1986," says the notification.

Isn't that happening everywhere, not just at religious and tourist places? Why not ban them everywhere?

But it’s a good move anyway.

I admire our country for the number of good and progressive laws we have on our statute books. Now, if we could only learn to implement them.

And I wish we could get rid of this preoccupation with religion. Specially the rituals.

Clean water is a very scarce resource and getting scarcer by the day. Banning plastic bags is a good idea. But a lot of other things also need to be banned. Particularly at religious places; particularly near water bodies.

The amount of junk that religious rituals generate is frightening. Water bodies are inundated with people immersing idols, foodstuff, flowers, incense, firewood, ashes, and so many other things.

We’re such a crazy people. Well meaning, pious, but unthinking and blind.

Back in the 70s there used to be a joke based on some songs by Bob Dylan and other such topical balladeers. The punch line was the moment the US government discovered that marijuana caused cancer they’d legalize it.

Governments and all large systems, including corporate systems, behave in completely irrational ways much of the time.

The recent experience in Mumbai established beyond any doubt that plastic bags are huge burden for urban systems to cope with.

California’s city government calculated that it costs them 17 cents to collect and dispose off a plastic bag, so they’ve mooted a tax of 17 cents on plastic bags.

That's in a place where people don’t just throw stuff all over the place. In India, we have no rules on how we organize our garbage and we believe that freedom means the right to litter.

But instead of taxing these ghastly things, their manufacturers have been specially exempted from taxes if they use “recycled” plastic.

The government of India needs to reconsider this insane rule.

Do you know how we "recycle" plastic in this country? We melt it at high temperatures, releasing tons of toxic gases into the atmosphere. Recycling is great when you do it rationally, but not this way! See http://www.badlani.com/recycle to see an ecologically friendly way to recycle.

Makes no sense. We live in a country that grows cotton and jute in abundance. Get yourself a nice stylish reusable cotton or jute bag for heavens sake.

Discourage practices that pose as eco-friendly but aren't. What's the point of imposing emissions rules on cars and then encouraging the burning of plastics with another government ruling? Dumb!

See http://www.badlani.com/bags to see what attractive choices you have.

Say no to poisonous plastic. In fact say no to all plastic bags.

These words have been bandied about so much that recyclable, ecofriendly, biodegradable and other such reassuring terms have lost meaning.

I earlier wrote a blog about one of the worst instances of this obfuscation. http://badlani.com/blog/weblog.php?id=30" target="_blank">http://badlani.com/blog/weblog.php?id=30

The Indian Express, a hugely influential newspaper with a massive circulation published a story that actually said ““NO NEED to kick this plastic habit”

They were talking about a technique developed at ATIRA to make plastic bags photodegradable. Which means it would break down with exposure to light and become a fine powder that would mix with the soil and invisibly poison all of us.

I wrote to the Indian Express and called the scientist. No reply.

When scientists and major newspapers make such irresponsible statements pronouncing a noxious and dangerous substance safe just because it can’t be seen, you see what I mean.

But today I read about what appears to be a genuine biodegradable plastic bag being made in Vasai by a guy called Perses Bilimoria, who’s making plastics from starch and cottonseeds, according to an article in Cybernoon.

I’m going to write to Perses today and try and see if we can find a way to work together to reduce the amount of plastic we pile up on our heads every day like lemmings.

Meanwhile, our fabric bags continue to be one way to avoid poisoning the earth. See them at http://www.badlani.com/bags

 

Great! They learned something from the recent flooding. It’s creditable to see a government in our country move this quickly.

But the lobbying has started and follows the usual route. Short sighted reps of the plastics industry have started making noises that more than 1,00,000 workers will lose their jobs.

Utter tripe of course, but our governments have a habit of rolling back many of their decisions when these kinds of pressures are brought to bear on them.

Our overly moralistic politicians had no problem with (so they claim) 1,00,000 bar girls losing their jobs when they closed down dance bars so I hope they will hold firm on the plastic bags issue.

But the ban on bar girls has more potential for creating an income for the enforcement system (like prohibition in Gujarat) so that ban will stay so that generous bribes are collected when folks are caught breaking the law.

But the ban on plastic bags doesn’t have that much potential for fun. So, even if they don’t roll the law back, I’m afraid the ban is difficult to enforce in a country where law enforcement hardly exists.

We already have laws banning the use and manufacture of thin gauge plastic bags, but they continue to be made and used with impunity and continue to choke drainage systems and be eaten by unsuspecting animals and marine life.

One look at the chaos on our roads and the government’s inability to enforce laws becomes clearly visible.

We export cloth bags to environmentally concerned customers all over the world from http://www.badlani.com/bags but hardly every get any customers in India. Sad, isn’t it?