Locally there are a variety of responses to the problem of plastic shopping bags. One store offers a weekly drawing of $25 to those who bring their own bags. Another has recycling bins. Some reuse boxes from shipping instead of bags. Others ignore the issue. I've seen the community practice in Belgium of bringing empty bags to the store and putting them in a large bin for re-use. Ireland has a tax on bags. Great Britain was debating a tax, but the supporting arguments have hit a pothole.
It turns out that the old Greenpeace arguments that have been copied for years were lies. This could end the proposed tax. The press is beginning to at least report environmentalist fraud when someone else does the work of exposing it. It does say something that this error went unreported for so many years. The press does do fact checking of claims by some politicians and companies. They really should check the claims of anyone who alleges scientific support. Too many of those claims are simply false if you check the original science.
There are cultural variations at work in the different approaches taken to reducing bag use. There are good arguments for reducing use to lower costs, lower trash volumes, etc. There never was a need to tell those lies. But political activists have trouble arguing for a change lacks a strong emotional hook. Paper shopping bags and plastic are both unnecessary expenses. They are unnecessary trash. Saving money and reducing trash lacks the emotional hook of millions of dying animals, but it has the advantage of truth. The problem becomes one of the best cultural way to implement a sensible reduction approach.
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