• China's Plastic Bag Ban Will Save 37 Million Barrels of Oil
• Australia plans to abolish bags by end 08
• Modbury UK
• Leaf Rapids, Manitoba
• Bejing - April 2007
• San Francisco Ban - March 2007
• Hong Kong
• UK Waste Campaign
• Ten Ways to Cut Waste -Europe
• Success in Malta: December 2006
• Higher Levy in Ireland
• Bhutan bans the bags: 2007
• France Plan Ban in 2005 for 2010
• Bombay Ban
• India
• Coles Bay, Tasmania
• IKEA in Oz
• Irish Success
• Irish Levy
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• South Africa Ban
• Scotland
• Banish the plastic bag

With 25 million less plastic bags, eco-taxation makes an impact

http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/2006/12/17/t12.html

17 December 2006

James Debono
The eco-tax has had a positive impact on the environment. In two years, the number of plastic bags has been reduced by 25 million.
And yet the environmental tax has failed to encourage the use of biodegradable plastic bags, the only bags which can be turned into compost, and which remain largely absent from Malta's shopping shelves.
The sharpest drop in the number of plastic bags was registered between 2004 and 2005 when the amount of plastic bags fell by 22.5 million. Statistics from the National Statistics Office indicate a further reduction of over 2.5 million in 2006, an indication that the environment ministry's drive to shift over to canvas bags was successful.
But no statistics are currently available to quantify how many of each type of plastic bag there is in the market, namely polythene plastics, degradable, and biodegradable.
Normally, polythene bags take 500 to 1,000 years to decompose, while simple degradable bags are made from the same material as polythene bags but an additive accelerates the fragmentation process.
On the other hand biodegradable bags are made entirely of organic material, and are suitable for composting and so are tax-free. Polythene incurs an eco contribution of 6c while degradable bags cost an extra 1c.
Manufacturers of degradable bags claim the bags disintegrate by oxidation and then biodegrade because moisture attracts micro-organisms. Critics of the industry claim that plastic fragments remain in the environment for a long time. Surely unlike biodegradable bags, they are not considered suitable for composting.
But despite being tax-free, biodegradable bags are largely absent from most shopping shelves mainly. That's because they are more expensive to produce than degradable bags.
And because the current tax regime is not incentivising their use, consumers have shifted to degradable plastic bags but not towards biodegradable bags.
According to EU laws, plastic bags can only be used for composting if 60 per cent of biodegradation occurs in 6 months. Degradable plastic bags do not match this requirement.
The UK Environment Agency decreed that during degradable plastics only breaks in to smaller fragments during a normal composting cycle of 8-12 weeks.
In Italy, anti-trust authorities even clamped down on misleading adverts of plastic bags claimed to be "100% Degradable. To Be Useful Also To Nature". They said that complete decay in 36 months "did not imply the necessarily ecological nature expressed in the ad." The authority also declared that the consumer is unaware that degradable bags are sensitive to heat and therefore not recyclable: "these are naturally destined for a rubbish dump."
The Ministry for the Environment and Rural Affairs claims that the major advantage of degradable bags lies in land-filling. "Degradable bags disintegrate over a period of years occupying less landfill space and minimise the risk of fires in landfills."
But the ministry would not mention a single advantage linking the use of degradable bags to the recycling or composting of this type of waste.
With most people now using degradable black bags to dispose their waste, this could pose difficulties for the separation of organic waste for the production of compost. The production of good quality compost for agriculture requires a biodegradable and compostable medium for its handling from source separation to composting.
Another problem is the false labelling of plastic bags as being degradable or biodegradable. Enforcement in this sector lies firmly in the hand of the VAT department.
Importers and producers of plastics are obliged to inform the authorities about the material used in the making of the bags. Having provided this proof, the VAT Department may then request the Malta Standards Authority to verify the certification.