Science/Environment The plastic bag myth

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Richo83

Brownlow Medallist
Oct 2, 2005
19,853
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I call BS. Where did you generae all this waste? I imagine pretty much all waste is caused by what you originally bought in the supermarket.

Empty packaging (outgoing) has less volume than full packaging (incoming) and should take up far less space, resulting in a plastic bag surplus.

I suspect you are lying to try and emphasise a point that isn't otherwise relevant.

It is possible and I'm in skilts and bp's position of either storing plastic bags or using them as bin liners (which they should be used for). Plastic bags are good for having around the home and at least in my pantry they aren't clogging drains or strangling wildlife. The reason why "green" bags are good is because they seem to be able to be reused, whereas who takes used plastic bags to the supermarket?
 

bit_pattern

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It's bin day at my house and it got me thinking, if people are recycling the way they should be (at least in melbourne) you should be using bugger all bin liners anyway, I just put ou a big wheelie packed full of recycling (a fortnights worth) and just two bags (weekly) of landfill waste. I reckon it'd be a roughly 70/30 split on recycling and landfill waste.
 

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It's bin day at my house and it got me thinking, if people are recycling the way they should be (at least in melbourne) you should be using bugger all bin liners anyway, I just put ou a big wheelie packed full of recycling (a fortnights worth) and just two bags (weekly) of landfill waste. I reckon it'd be a roughly 70/30 split on recycling and landfill waste.

I reckon we're throwing away more plastic now than before the ban.

Used to use green bags anyway at the markets where we got fruit/veg etc and get plastic bags when we shopped at the supermarket whenever we had to drop in to get something at the supermarket and didn't have the green ones. The few plastic bags we got made great bin liners but now when we need to get bags at the supermarket they are the 15c bags which are about 4x as thick as the old ones and they still get used as rubbish bags.
 

lemon chicken

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Jan 31, 2008
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It's bin day at my house and it got me thinking, if people are recycling the way they should be (at least in melbourne) you should be using bugger all bin liners anyway, I just put ou a big wheelie packed full of recycling (a fortnights worth) and just two bags (weekly) of landfill waste. I reckon it'd be a roughly 70/30 split on recycling and landfill waste.

Id say a a fair bit of your recycling is not going to be recycled.
 

lemon chicken

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In what way? I'm talking bottles, cans, paper/cardboard, plastics with the right recycle symbol on it - that's a large portion of my refuse.

Cans and the right types of bottles are easy recyclables but plastics are still being hand sorted. Imagine sorting through rubbish looking for a symbol with a number in it, cant imagine its a profitable exercise especially when food contamination is a major problem in trying to recycle most things. The plastic packaging that is made in Oz is correctly labelled for identifying the type of plastic but any from overseas is not.
 

Saigan

Team Captain
Mar 13, 2008
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These so called environmentally friendly “green“ bags apart from being made in China the worlds largest polluter, are made from Polypropylene which is a by-product of oil and will only breakdown if UV and oxygen are exposed to it over a long period of time, so if its buried in land fill it would take hundreds of years to breakdown. The whole this is a con job.
 

bit_pattern

Norm Smith Medallist
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^^ Yes and no, they are reusable, and we do go through a ****tonne of plastic bags every year, so there is some benefit (silver linings and all that). But, yes, there is something seedy about off-shoring our emissions to China in a feelgood, greenwash veneer.
 

Saigan

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But now we are starting to buy millions of the green bags every year. Whats going to happen in ten or more years when we lose them or they get holes in them and throw them out? At least the new batch (the last 18months) of plastic bags break down in land fill with in 12 months
 

cancat

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Jun 4, 2007
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Cans and the right types of bottles are easy recyclables but plastics are still being hand sorted. Imagine sorting through rubbish looking for a symbol with a number in it, cant imagine its a profitable exercise especially when food contamination is a major problem in trying to recycle most things. The plastic packaging that is made in Oz is correctly labelled for identifying the type of plastic but any from overseas is not.

Profitable? Local councils pay Visy to process the contents of recycle bins.
 

bit_pattern

Norm Smith Medallist
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^^ So are you saying I'm just costing local government money by putting as much as possible in the recycling bin? (not that I'm a rate payer, mind you :p). I'd be very interested to hear any opinion on this, if people know more about what is for me a murky subject.
 

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Jafa

Norm Smith Medallist
Aug 4, 2002
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But now we are starting to buy millions of the green bags every year. Whats going to happen in ten or more years when we lose them or they get holes in them and throw them out? At least the new batch (the last 18months) of plastic bags break down in land fill with in 12 months

The problem is that billions yearly don't end up in landfill. They end up in waterways, oceans etc. There they do some serious damage to the animals that inhabit those areas.

I watched a doco on TV recently regarding plastic and the plastic bag problem was out of control in India. These green plastic carry bags can be recycled. The Yanks turn them (and other plastics) into products such as railway sleepers and garden edging.
 
Jun 23, 2008
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Until the recent ban on plastic bags here in SA, as far back as I remember (I'm 21 years old) we've used all our shopping bags as bin liners in our house. We've always just stored them somewhere in the kitchen, and replaced them whenever the bins are full - we've always had a bin in both the kitchen and the bathroom. We used bin liners for a bit after the ban, until we recently discovered a "motherlode" of spare plastic bags in the back of our linen press that we never knew we had. Unless you get a bigger bin, using bin liners doesn't cut down on the number of plastic bags you use, as you'd be buying ones that are suitable for the size of the bins in your house anyway, so using the same amount as you did when (or if) you'd previously been using shopping bags as bin liners.
 

blackcat

Irving's godfather and handle
Dec 29, 2003
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So, the problem is littering, not plastic bags. I use all of my plastic bags as bin liners. There is nothing inherent in specific-purpose rubbish bags which would prevent them also becoming a litter problem.
but you my friend are a self professed disciple of malthus

i use my plastic bags effectively , not like michael hutchence and the gamine blonde actress from brides of christ

auto-erotic asphyxiation is indeed safe when practised with appropriate precaution , hutchence gave bdsm a bad name

#trojan
@slits[sic]
 
Nov 8, 2016
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Happy new year. Hopefully the Socceroos can repeat their success from Germany in South Africa.

I hear there are these things called Vuvuzelas that the fans will play during games over there. I cannot wait to enjoy a unique world Cup with that ambience.

Reflecting on 2009 what about that bird flu pandemic? What a joke that was. Like a virus is gonna stop the world in its tracks in the 21st century.
 
getting rid of plastic shopping bags is a good thing but moving to bin liners and heavier carry bags is a net zero, other than to profits of supermarkets and similar.

The solution has to be biodegradable bags or waste to energy


the current position is nonsense
 
Feb 18, 2017
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We don’t need plastic for a lot of the things we use plastic for:

- supermarket bags were made of brown paper

- milk came in waxed cardboard or glass bottles with silver foil caps

- cucumbers were sold without a plastic sheath

Somethings might have been slightly less convenient, but it wasn’t a big deal.
 

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