Monday, November 15, 2010

THE WAR OF THE BAGS.

In our concerted effort to promote a conducive environment, a “war” seems to be waging between paper bags and plastic bags. It is heading towards being the flavor of the decade.



Penang has banned plastic bags

The Negeri Sembilan state government is considering making it a condition that all businesses - from hypermarkets to pasar malam traders - do not use plastic bags on stipulated days as part of their licensing requirement.

Selangor promotes the use of paper bags on certain days of the week.

A Selangor backbencher has urged the state government to close down factories producing plastic bags to effectively curb their use.

Shafie Abu Bakar (PAS-Bangi) said that the state's "No plastic bag" campaign is not achieving its target and as such more radical measures are required.

He described the current campaign as ineffective and a waste of state government resources.

I consider this move not very proactive….more a knee-jerk easy-way-out reaction.

Fortunately we hear a sane voice in Consumer Affairs and Environment exco member MP Elizabeth Wong's who replied that prohibition of plastic bag production was too extreme and was not in line with the state's objective of educating the public on the need to reduce plastic bag usage. Syabas YB Eli.


In one swoop plastic bags have become the villain of the pack because it is not biodegradable. Lets hear from an expert like
Michael Pollick:


Grocery stores ask paper or plastic but which is healthier environmentally?

A guide to recycling, materials and the technology behind bags.


For years, grocery clerks have routinely asked customers if they would prefer paper or plastic bags. It would seem now that the preference has shifted in the direction of plastic, for reasons which have little to do with environmental issues and everything to do with convenience and efficiency. Many stores today automatically set up their check-out stands for plastic bags, often making the decision for paper much more difficult for the consumer. From a business standpoint, it's not hard to gauge the preferences of most grocery and retail stores today- the ubiquitous plastic bag.

But does this mean the paper bag, often seen as the more environmentally-conscious choice, has become extinct? Not necessarily. Paper packaging is still used extensively, from gift wrap to envelopes to meat wrappers. Customers still prefer paper products for applications where plastic bags aren't especially helpful. Plastic bags may rule at the check-out counter, but cardboard and other paper products are still preferred elsewhere.

So which form of bag is actually best for the environment? It depends on how you define 'best' when it comes to issues of environmental responsibility. Both paper and plastic bags are produced in factories, which means energy consumption and waste materials as by-products. Instinctively, many consumers would assume that paper bags would be better for the environment because their core ingredient is derived from the natural product called wood. But the wood industry is also held responsible for clear-cutting old growth forests and adding to the problems of deforestation. Replanting fast-growing pine trees may solve the recycling problem for the companies, but it also creates unnatural forests with fewer hardwood trees for native animals to inhabit.

Plastic also receives a fair share of criticism from environmentalists. Plastic is by its very nature an 'artificial' product, derived ultimately from petroleum or other chemicals. Producing usable plastic often involves creating heat sources in factories and substantial amounts of water to control the process. Harmful chemicals may be released into the air in the form of smoke. Ground water may become contaminated by the run-off of plastic by-products. Until recently, most plastic grocery bags and other packaging were largely un-biodegradable, which meant they were not breaking down into harmless components after being discarded by consumers. Older plastics would continue to contaminate the environment and release harmful gases for months or years.

So if neither paper nor plastic is completely safe environmentally, which one is closer to the right answer?

Again, it depends on your definition of environmental safety. Paper bags have always been recyclable and biodegradable, which means consumers can be assured that the product will not harm the environment after disposal. Paper bags can be reused for other projects involving paper, which encourages recycling. Paper companies often use a lower-grade paper pulp to manufacture grocery bags, which means that the factory is using almost all of its supply of wood effectively. Grocery store packers also tend to fit more products in each bag, which reduces the total number of bags used per transaction. Packers are sometimes encouraged to use more plastic bags in order to avoid accidental breakage. This practice leads to excessive waste over the years.

But plastic bags also have their environmental advantages. The energy used to produce plastic bags is often less than the energy used to produce an equivalent number of paper bags. Plastic extrusion machines can create hundreds of individual bags from a surprisingly small amount of raw plastic material. Plastic can also be produced from lower-grade petroleum, which means that each barrel of crude oil (ultimately a natural product) is used efficiently. Since it takes far less raw material to produce one plastic grocery bag than an equivalent paper one, an argument could be made that plastic is actually a better choice environmentally. Recent advances in polymer technology have also resulted in plastics which are closer to true biodegradability than older forms of plastic. Modern plastic bags will eventually be reduced to the minimal amount of raw materials they contain. Plastic bags can also be reused as garbage containers or freezer bags, creating less of a need for more expensive plastic products.

The ultimate answer between paper or plastic may remain a matter of debate for years. But the recent tendency of stores to offer plastic nearly exclusively may indicate the future from a business point of view. If demand for paper bags continues to decline, then paper companies may stop producing them for consumers. A new material may be developed which will be more environmentally friendly than today's plastic bags. Until that day arrives, consumers may have to choose their bags based on convenience as much as environmental concerns.

15 comments:

  1. Not all plastic bags are 'bad'. Tesco Malaysia uses biodegradable plastic bags, which actually breaks down after a couple of weeks! I think there's a need for a proper plan for this, instead of everyone jumping on the bandwagon to ban plastic and not considering the impact it has on some businesses. Anyway, paper is not a good alternative either, unless it's recycled paper bags. There are certain purchases that one can do away with plastic ('dry & clean' products like tin food, products in containers etc) but fresh produce will still need some plastic to contain the wet messiness that comes with it like fish, prawns, chicken etc.
    Am I talking sense here? :)

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  2. Posing this type of consumer question in cyberspace is self defeating ( or maybe Blog filling ), since this is an end user public matter and takes more than 18 tedious debates to come to a preliminary conclusion & visitors to pulsating be all end all political blogs such as yours couldn't care less except when their favorite whipping boy like Zahid or Zaid gets thrashed & torn apart. No ?

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  3. When I first visited India in the early 70's, I was shocked that the shops and restaurants there did not have plastic bags or plastic wrappers for food. They were still "backward" and plastic had yet to catch on.

    Plastic bags, wrappers etc are a great convenience and are cheap to boot.

    What we need is to educate Malaysians to not litter.

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  4. Bring you own shopping bag..end of story

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  5. It's a stupid idea to ban plastic bags altogether. What are people going to use to carry their stuff? Plastic recycle bags? Plastic factories will just convert their plant to produce these plastic recycle bags in huge quantity and sell them as cheap as normal plastic bags ... then we are back to square 1.

    Do I have a solution? Easy. Get rid of all the politicians. They have been recycled for too long!

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  6. Hi Peng....been a long silence. You keeping well. Thanks for the feedback....makes a lot of sense.

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  7. So long as the garbage collectors insist on the use of plastic bags for household garbage disposals, I find the call for ban of plastic bags by politicians to be a load of rubbish ! The plastic bags I get free from my supermarket shopping are always put to good use for that purpose.

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  8. A couple of other factors to throw into the plastic bag debate are:
    The plastics industry only represents about 1% of the total oil and gas business so focussing on cleaning up that sector seems like a token gesture and is distracting us from the main issue which is to replace oil and gas

    A lot of paper bags have designs or advertising printed on them and the ink used doesn't bio-degrade along with the bags rather it puts toxins into the ground.

    Plastic is re-usable. Some of it can be reclaimed and converted onto new plastic products and plastic bags can be burned to generate energy.

    Ultimately we all need to take more responsibility for the garbage we produce. The thing I hate the most is styrofoam - now there's something we should ban!

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  9. Use of biodegradable plastic bags for 'wet' goods and paper bags for the rest will be ideal. Hypermarkets can give a discount of rm1/ for shoppers who recycle their bags ,will encourage some to bring their own bags, for a start. Politicians should think of the Rakyat and to save the environment and not be a 'handman ' of businessmen!

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  10. Another thing I'd like to pick up on is Peng's comment about the wet messiness of prawns etc. This wet waste is the real enemy of the environment. Because we still don't separate our garbage, a very high percentage of our waste is organic. By the time it's been in the house bin for a day, then bundled into a black garbage bag and left outside for the garbage collectors to arrive, it's already decomposing.
    This is what makes our garbage smell so rank and it's this decomposition that produces leachate, which poisons our water and produces methane when it's dumped on the landfill. I feel that this is the main issue to tackle right now rather than plastic bags.

    Back in the mid 90s there was a 3R campaign which seemed to fizzle out and even though Alam Flora promised to follow the 3R ideology, when they won the contract to collect garbage, nothing has happened. A lot of assessment money goes on garbage collection and disposal yet people still haven't been given bins to keep the wet waste separate from the dry. And by the way, How come we throw so much food away?

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  11. When I was in England during the late sixties and early seventies, we were bringing our own shopping bags and the wet fish or meat were wrapped in white papers.We would wash our dirty shopping bags to be used for another day's shopping.Thirty years later I visited England once again and wow people are still bringing their own shopping bags and now biodegradable plastic bags have since been introduced.Come on guys and girls,I am sure there are many old bags stored in some corner of the house waiting to be of some service to the environment.
    YB Elizabeth Wong please be firm in what the State Government believes in and do not give in to grouses by consumers and businessmen. Whenever there is a law, enforced it without fear and favour.

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  12. The biggest problem is the unnecessary use of the bags and they way people dispose of them.
    Buy a high-5 bread in plastic, you get another plastic bag.
    Next is the way people dispose of them.
    Drive around in kampung with all the small garbage fires everywhere, the acid smoke of burned plastic burns your lungs out!
    Not to mention all the drains clogged up by plastic bags.
    The ban has been brought upon the consumers themselves in the way they act.
    If every citizen of Malaysia reduce plastic bags with 1 a day, that is 27.000.000 plastic bags saved in one day only!

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  13. As far as i am concern, it is a good move. I am proud as a Penangite to say that we are now quite comfortable no using plastic bags on certain days. By the way, it doesnt mean that if we don't use plastic bags, we have to use paper based containers / bags. The essence here is using something that we can recycle or reuse. The 'no plastic bags' ruling if successfully adopted throughout Malaysia will really earn us the right to say " MALAYSIA BAGUS". Let's do it , Malaysians, Let's have something that is really 'bagus'

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  14. - "Backward countries use large leaves (joined together with "lidi" if necessary) or banana leaves. We even used betel-nut palm fronds (the flat portion at the base) here at one time.
    - Biodegradable plastic may be made from GM maize which brings its own environmental danger.
    - Actual research on garbage dumps shows that a lot of the paper remains undegraded for decades, probably due to the lack of oxygen.
    - Styrofoam (food containers) does not degrade at all. Most of the other plastic takes hundreds or thousands of years.
    - Some time ago, a fast-food chain switched to cardboard containers and then switched back to styrofoam when the analysis showed no benefit.
    - The major damage from plastic (and paper for that matter) is due to inconsiderate disposal, fashion (refusal by customers to bring their own containers) and the failure to provide disposal bins. Flooding and dengue are 2 major effects.
    - Regardless of the type of container, we need to tackle this danger as follows: (a) disallowing the manufacture, import or sale of small bags and over-packaged manufactured goods (b) mandating a minimum charge for larger plastic bags (c) heavy fines and strict enforcement everywhere for littering.

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  15. Plastic is a polymer which is more difficult to biodegrade than paper. This is a fact.

    Paper is made from organic wooden fibres which are biodegradable. If you look at the total energy used for the breakdown of these 2 materials, plastic will end up using more energy and takes a longer time to breakdown.

    There are pros and cons of using plastic vs paper bags. Paper bags will break easily when used for wet and watery materials. We have to decide what is the long term effects of plastic on the world's eco-energy cycle and the environment.

    The ultimate resting place for plastic is in the rubbish dumps and landfill. The land around these areas are not easily re-used for human habitation.

    The only solution then is education and to create "awareness" on the long term effects of plastic and paper and for the public to minimise its usage in our everyday life.This is the first step and needs the government's initiatives. If left it to the ordinary people, nothing will happen

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