October 2007

Inmates of the Rock have, on occasion, frustrated with bureaucratic delays and lack of amenities, been overheard to call our island, in jest, the “fourth world.”

But here’s a thought: even in Uganda, plastic bags have been outlawed. In fact, someone caught selling plastic bags could face a US$20,000 fine. Imagine trying to enforce that law here!

Some countries, in an effort to encourage reduced plastic usage, ask consumers to pay for shopping bags. Others have banned plastic bags altogether and use only paper containers, whereas shoppers in some societies have become accustomed taking their own carriers when visiting supermarkets.

Apart from toxic waste, plastic is probably one of the most resilient scourges of our environment, considering that this skoopethia (rubbish) takes approximately two thousand years to decompose.

Whilst our ecofriendly little island’s environmental consciousness has improved in recent years, we still have a long way to go when it comes to recycling anything, never mind coming up with ideas for reducing our use of plastic.

Plastic shopping bags are given out for even the smallest purchases, and they are so prolifically used that they find their way all over the countryside. Witness the lost bags waving from fences or trapped in tree branches along our otherwise pristine coastal paths.

There may be no immediate way to solve this particular form of pollution, but there are some simple ways in which we can work to limit this problem:

1. Reuse your bags: take them with you when you go shopping. The shop owners appreciate this (as it saves them the expense of dishing out new ones), and bags can be used several times over. Better yet, take your own cloth bag with you to the shops: they hold more and are easier to carry anyway.
   
   
2. If one were to carry an extra plastic bag on trips to and from town, it might serve as a useful receptacle for the ubiquitous ice cream and candy bar wrappers and discarded beverage containers littering our streets (usually within sight, if not tossing distance, of a Demos bin).
   
   
3. This may seem a little alien to some, but in other parts of the world, dog owners use plastic bags, glovelike, to pick up doggie-doo. Indeed, many countries will fine pooch owners if they don’t scoop up said poop. Many of us let our dogs run around unaccompanied, meaning we aren’t there when they make their deposits. Having a bag handy on trips to and from home, we can, however, pick up any such unsightly piles in the vicinities in which our dogs roam. There’s usually a Demos bin nearby, obviating the need to carry the package with us for long.
   
   
4. Use the bags as rubbish-bin liners instead of buying more plastic bags to collect waste.

Of course, it would be ridiculous to suggest that no one ever take another plastic bag home from a shop or that everyone carry them around picking up trash and poop all day long. As with conserving energy and water, however, small changes in habit can make a noticable difference.