It's the only planet we have folks!

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?

Contradicting the clichéd assumption that babes lack brains, Bollywood superstar Priety Zinta is clearly a thinking woman.

‘‘I want to urge people not to litter and turn our city into a big dump before we all die of diseases and toxic poisoning,’’ she fumes. The first thing on Zinta’s agenda is to ask the authorities to ban plastic bags in Maharashtra. ‘‘We have to stop using polythene bags. We must adopt brown bags. They have banned plastic in Shimla and it’s already looking good,’’ she reasons.

Preity, we already have a law against plastic bags but it isn’t implemented. And brown bags, by which I assume you mean paper bags, aren’t a great option.

Paper bags are made by cutting down trees that take more than 20 years to grow. When they are cut to spread literature and news and knowledge, maybe it’s worth it, but to make a paper bag that gets used just once? Terribly wasteful, in my opinion.

Cloth bags are reusable and that’s the real answer. The sign of a mature society is when people give up a little convenience for the overall good of their environment. Carrying one’s own shopping bags is a small price to pay to pay for a cleaner city.

And the price is truly small as you can see at http://www.badlani.com/bags/

Mumbaikars ought to be specially sensitive to this. Discarded plastic bags contributed substantially to creating the choking of drains that led to the recent floods the city experienced.

I just read an article by Cindy Carrera where she explains the basics of how organizations can use imprinted promotional articles to their advantage.

She categorizes their uses into Advertising Specialties, Business Gifts, Premiums, and Recognition Awards.

“The trick to a good promotion is to attach your company details to something useful. Now, there is "private useful" like the promotional toothbrush you use in the privacy of your own bathroom, and there is "public useful" that you use out there where everyone sees you inadvertently parading the promotion.

This is where promotional bags come in. Few of us can get people to wear sandwich boards for us without paying them, but easily collocated promotional bags act in much the same way” she says.

“Imagine” she adds “the happy recipient of your promotional gift arriving at a jazz concert in the park toting your promotional bag. There it sits on the blanket, sophisticated, serene and discreetly advertising your sophisticated and serene company. What a pleasure.”

Indeed. We’ve found that our bags get reused more than 300 times.

Choose a relevant bag, she suggests. She’s right. There’s a huge variety to choose from, and most are more affordable than you might think. See the variety at http://www.badlani.com/bags

I'm sure we have something suited for your next promotion. And if we don't, we'll design a special solution for you.

Shane Doyle from Ireland wrote in about my blog on Ireland’s plastic bags. Here’s what he said:

"I'm from Ireland myself and the whole plastic bag tax has been a roaring success. You have to ask for a bag now if you want one, the days of automatically being handed a bag are long gone.

And it really works, people can be seen going to the shops with their own "green bags", as they are called, or even just re-using the same plastic bag again and again. You rarely see a plastic bag being blown down the street in the wind anymore!

I must say, it was a brilliant idea!"

Thanks, Shane, for sharing that. I agree that it is a very bright idea. If you’re sick of seeing plastic bags destroy your environment, ask your elected representative to read this blog.

Helen Logan reports in the Evening Gazette that Ireland used 1.2 billion plastic bags before 2002, when a 15 cent tax was imposed on their usage.

Did it hurt business? Was the Irish government overthrown by distraught shoppers?

Not really.

What actually happened was that plastic bag usage fell by more than a billion bags within 5 months, and earned £2.25m for the Dublin exchequer to be spent on environmental protection projects.

“Many of us pick up and fill loads of plastic carriers when doing the weekly supermarket shop, without a second thought” says Helen, “imposing such a tax seems an easy way of cutting down on this type of consumption. People can either bring their own bags or at least be encouraged to re-use the plastic ones if they have had to pay for them”.

Common sense isn’t it?

The harm that these innocuous looking little plastic bags do cannot easily be visualized by everyone. If a 15 cent tax can bring the issue home, I’m all for it!