Right: An innovative way of recycling plastic shopping bags.Further implications
There is currently no clear consensus as to how Australia should proceed regarding the management of plastic bags. The media has generally laid this policy failure at the door of the federal Environment Minister, Peter Garrett.
While is was initially surprising that the supposed consensus on the phasing out of plastic bags did not translate into policy direction, the issue is, in fact, more complex than it at first appears.
While there is general acceptance that as a nation we over-use the discretionary product, plastic bags, there is no clear consensus as to how to deal with this problem. On the one hand, there are those who claim, with some justification, that plastic bags are not a major environmental hazard for this country. Added to this is the fact that many of the supposed alternatives to plastic bags are at least as environmentally problematic as plastic bags. Indeed it is claimed that many of these alternatives may cause more environmental harm than plastic bags.
On the other hand it is indisputable that plastic bags though convenient, are not necessary and that therefore, it should be possible to either impose levies on them or ban them. It is also a fact that plastic bags, because of their very visible nature, are symbolic of many other environmental problems. That we are currently unable to address this problem in a uniform way can be seen as a symbolic failure.
Finally, it appears that merely addressing the problem of plastic bags would be cosmetic. The underlying problem is our failure to address the challenge of recycling, waste disposal and littering. This problem needs to be tackled in the broad, looking at both industry and private consumers, if we are to have a significant impact on the problems caused by waste generation and inappropriate waste disposal.