Plastic Bag Free Geeveston

Plastics are made from non-renewable natural resources such as crude oil, gas and coal. According to the 2002 Nolan ITU Report
for Environment Australia on Plastic Shopping Bags - Analysis of Levies and Environmental Impacts; just 8.7 plastic checkout bags
contain enough embodied petroleum energy to drive a car 1 kilometre.

Plastic bags have been around for 30 years now. It is estimated world wide that 1 trillion bags are used and discarded every year.

Australians use 3.92 billion plastic bags a year, that's over 10 million new bags being used every day. An estimated 3.76 billion
bags or 20,700 tonnes of plastic are disposed of in landfill sites throughout Australia every year. Australians dump 7,150 recyclable
plastic bags into landfills every minute or 429,000 bags every hour.

It is estimated that around 50 million bags enter the Australian litter stream every year. Unless they are collected, they remain in the
environment and accumulate at a staggering rate. If these 50 million plastic bags were made into a single plastic sheet, it would be
big enough to cover the Melbourne CBD.

Many thousands of marine mammals and seabirds die every year around the world as a result of plastic litter. When the animal dies
and decays the plastic is free again to repeat the deadly cycle. There are 2 major reasons that plastic bags are particularly
problematic in the litter stream:
1. They last from 20 - 1 000 years
2. They escape and float easily in air and water, travelling long distances

Information from Clean up Australia

http://www.cleanup.org.au/au/LivingGreener/plastic-bag-facts.html

Plastic Bag Meeting Geeveston

Saturday 25 July 2009

A group of 12 met at the Geeveston Community Hall to view portions of the Addicted to Plastic DVD produced
by Cryptic Moth as part of the Climb It! Challenge funded by Climate Connect that the Geeveston Community
Centre is running over the next year.

The movie is based on one mans journey to discover where all the plastic we use goes. As every piece of
plastic ever produced, apart from that which has been incinerated, still exists. The findings were alarming,
with all the major oceans forming gyres, often called great ocean garbage patches, where ocean currents
collect plastic. Surface water samples showed a 10 to 1 ratio of plastic to food. Even more alarmingly the
plastic becomes a accumulation point for chemicals such as pesticides and herbicides which are then eaten by
fish and 'bioaccumulate' in our food system.

The second half of the movie looked at how different organisations, companies and communities deal with
recycling plastic or coming up with alternatives to petroleum based plastics, - bio plastics.
The group had a lively discussion about what solutions we could apply locally to Geeveston to, initially reduce
or eliminate plastic bag use in the area without cost to local businesses and without causing major
inconvenience. However, it was an obvious starting point with the group wanting to tackle bigger issues of
recycling in our area and supporting the reduction of plastics wherever possible.

Ten ideas on how to reduce or eliminate plastic bags from Geeveston.

1. Encourage the use of cardboard boxes

2. Wrap vegetables in newspaper

3. Subsidise the cost of reusable bags through the Climate Connect funding, making them approx 50 cents to
purchase for a period of time.

4. Create incentives to use reusable bags, such as promotional products for local businesses to give to people
who remember to bring their bags.

5. Sell biodegradable bags such as cornstarch at a cost recovery price. Approximately 35-50 cents each.

6. Talk to school students about the issues of plastic bags.

7. Have a road side 'thermometer' that shows the level of plastic bags we have reduced by.

8. Install road side signs coming into Geeveston on northern, southern routes and on the main street that
state, 'Geeveston plastic bag free - help make it a reality'.

9. Hold a plastic bag free challenge for a month, for example October.

10. Enlist the help and support of the business community, and help and support them.

While there has been an initial local business group meeting in June on the subject of plastic bag reduction or
elimination. The next step for the group is to talk to local businesses again and devise a plan between them
and the community.

It was acknowledged that the Huon Valley Council is also going down a similar path and we may be able to
work in with their initiatives. Julie Alderfox, the councils Community Development officer is currently involved
in the process of producing bags to distribute in the area.