"PlasticBags" news and stories

Zip-close bags are great for food storage, but they serve a multitude of other purposes in the kitchen, too.

Many of us remember to reuse plastic grocery bags, but here are some tricks for getting the most out of those vegetable and bread bags.

I mentioned a few days ago the plan by UK supermarket Tescos to introduce bio-degradable carrier bags across the country. In Australia a similar plan has failed to produce the environmental benefits hoped for.

The Australian Government's economic advisory body has recommended ditching plans to wipe out their huge use of plastic bags (estimated ot be five billion plastic bags a year), saying the costs outweigh the benefits.

The idea to save marine wildlife and reduce litter was of course a good one but they say that plastic bags are not that great a threat to wildlife and that the authorities have not taken into account that bags are reused as bin liners. The commission argues that tougher anti-litter laws or harsher fines might be a better way of addressing litter.

The supermarket chains Woolworths and Coles have so far failed to meet a 50 per cent reduction target by the end of last year.

The image is from the BBC; an article on green issues.

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The UK's top supermarket Tesco has announced that they are to introduce bio-degradable carrier bags. It also aims to cut the number of plastic bags given to customers by nearly a billion each year.

According to letsrecycle.com the UK gets through over 17.5 billion plastic carrier bags a year from supermarkets alone. So you would have thought they would be happy with the supermarkets plans. Not at all.

The fact they are to be biodegradable got the Liberal Democrat environment spokesman Chris Huhne a bit fired up. He accused the supermarket chain of misunderstanding waste issues, suggesting that degradable plastic bags will produce greenhouse gases when they break down. You just can't win sometimes.

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