JF
the fact that plastic bags aren't a primary cause of marine deaths, doesn't make attempts to ban plastic bags either wrong or extortion. It also doesn't mean that there aren't more pressing environmental issues that must be dealt with - please don't make the mistake of pitting one environmental problem against another as though we can only solve one.

I use those green enviro bags when I do scheduled shopping, I even have some of those older calico bags that I use regularly. I also, when doing some lunchtime shopping, and at other times, use plastic shopping bags. These are then recycled as garbage bags. If I cannot get these, I will buy plastic garbage bags, which raises a point:

If plastic shopping bags are banned, I will undoubtedly buy a 'reusable' bag each time I shop, which will mean that I will use a number of those as garbage bags.

Those free shopping bags are so cheap because they are made from a petroleum gas that is otherwise going to be burnt, So, the choice for the environment is: plastic bags as landfill (a form of carbon capture), or petroleum gas burnt creating greenhouse CO2?

Wrapping rubbish in paper means that there will be less paper to recycle.

Talk of garbage bins is a distraction. 30 years ago we used to put out one or two garbage bins twice a week. In many areas this rubbish was burnt. Now we put out about the same amount of rubbish, it is just collected in a different and more economical way. We are trying to recycle more glass and paper. In high density living it is not possible to have worm farms and the like.

It is good to have so many opinions about plastic bags. Answers to most of the worries that we cannot solve the plastic bag problem are in a careful reading of the original article, including the question of why need bin-liners. On other points: There are also many other useful products can be made with the ‘waste’ petrochemicals now turned into plastic bags. If you are going to put some rubbish somewhere, you might as well put it where it should go – no need to sort it later. I have seen enormous amounts of plastic bag litter mucking up rivers and on shores, and the like ... I have not seen a trapped or choked animal, neither in seventy-nine years out in the world have I seen a person shot, yet people assure me that happens too. But JF is right that the really terrible problems for fish stocks are food-web devastation and other man-made depredations.
We waste a tremendous amount of food today in one way or another; no-waste was one big reason why seventy-years ago people had such small dustbins collected once a week. Wartime Britain had ‘pig-bins’ even in flats and apartments, collected to feed pigs; our flats and apartments have rubbish collections, and there are non-mandatory worm farms for scraps that are cheap, inconspicuous and easy. Plastic bags are not a problem for the Productivity Commission because they are profitable, but they are in their billions just too much for an economy.
Seventy years ago and before that too people did not spend so much time cleaning up after kids, because the kids had less to strew around, and had to help each other clear up; families did however not have electric appliances like we do, and general cleaning took more time. People shopped with baskets and there was less to buy. As well, there were deliveries by horse-and-cart. We cannot go back to that, although shopping by phone and internet has been one substitute.

Finally, who said anything is impossible?

next,

It is extortion through misuse of authority to use law or threat to force plastic bags out of use by claiming they are killing thousands of marine animals when they are not, in order to save retailer money for the throw away bags and to secure money for the reusable bags. The public is intimidated by threat and blame that use of plastic bags is killing marine animals. False pretense is also involved. It is wrong to gag and intentionally ignore unprecedented marine animal starvation and solutions.

Thank you , JF Aus, for publicising the serious problem of gagging information about unprecedented marine animal starvation and solutions. ‘Profitability’ drives the gagging.

1. Major reasons why other countries are reducing one-trip plastic bags are the waste of petrochemicals and the litter problem, including in landfill, which councils recognise.

2. Retailers like the low-cost bags because they can be filled faster at checkouts, so work out cheaper.

3. The evidence that plastic bags are killing marine and land animals can be seen at http://www.abc.net.au/science/features/bags/,
http://www.planetark.com/campaignspage.cfm/newsid/62/newsDate/7/story.htm, and www2.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/ npws.nsf/Content/media_230104_royal_trial.

(There are other things we have not seen ourselves, such as shootings, but there is evidence that they happen.)

4. The Productivity Commission’s arguments are at http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,19228242-2,00.html, but their driving interest is profitability now, not the future.

5. So much of responses to ideas about saving are emotional - on both sides. Can we stop being biased by our own personal wishes?

Ozideas,

The ABC 'science' site you refer to shows a photograph of a single turtle with part of one plastic bag hanging hanging from it's mouth. Green turtles depend on seagrass for food as well as crabs that depend on seagrass habitat. By 1982 Western Port Bay Victoria had lost 100 square km of seagrass out of a total of 150 sq km. I expect nutrient pollution exposed from deep dredging in Port Phillip Bay will wipe out more seagrass and more turtles but the ABC does not report these matters. Who in the ABC profits from this gagging?

The Planet Ark site shows one photograph of only one dead animal, a bryde's whale with what appears to be a single plastic bag in the stomach. There is no evidence this whale died from that plastic bag. Bryde's whales eat small fish such as anchovy, herring, pilchard, all of which are seriously and generally depleted, all seagrass dependent. Nutrient pollution is killing seagrass and media gagging of the problem is stopping debate and solutions. Australian south eastern and east coast seagrass that I know of is devastated, causing for example, unprecedented mass starvation of millions of mutton birds along shore of 4 states during October 2000. The initial SOMER report acknowledged 50% of seagrass lost from the NSW coast. In Queensland for example, I find over 90% of seagrass lost from the Nerang River alone.

The ark people say on their site, quote, "Tens of thousands of whales, birds, seals and turtles are killed every year from plastic bag litter in the marine environment as they often mistake plastic bags for food such as jellyfish". end quote. Accordingly I submit, THERE IS NO SCIENTIFIC OR OTHER EVIDENCE TO SUBSTANTIATE THIS CLAIM.

The waffle and emotion or whatever is distracting attention from real damage to the marine environment and socio-economic impact and dire urgent need for solutions. If anyone can prove me incorfrect then do it now. Otherwise what does PM Rudd intend to do about these national and international major issues?