Get lost, you filthy old bag

Get lost, you filthy old bag
'Simply zero justification' for global marine life being choked to death by plastic garbage, study says

Edmonton Journal
Posted June 9, 2009

Time has run out for plastic bags. It's time to pitch them -- and that's the problem: Where in the world should they be dumped?

On Monday, a United Nations study showed the world's seas are filthier than ever. The head of the UN Environment Program said the biggest single step any government can take is to ban the manufacture of supermarket-style plastic bags, which continue to be widely available across Canada.

Fisheries and Oceans Minister Gail Shea, said in a statement marking World Oceans Day, that Canadians need to "consider the importance of oceans."

Bags and plastic bottles comprise most of the plastic refuse that, in turn, is by far the most pervasive type of marine litter around the world, according to Marine Litter: A Global Challenge.

Smokers are also identified in the 233-page report as being huge contributors to marineborne garbage, tossing butts and cigarette wrappers that account for 40 per cent of trash in the Mediterranean, for example.

Conducted with the Ocean Conservancy advocacy group, the report attempts to take stock of water-borne garbage in 12 major seas.

It says that, despite international and localized protection measures, "alarming quantities of rubbish" thrown out to sea continue to pose safety and health threats to people and wildlife. The trash also damages nautical equipment and adversely affects tourism by defacing coastal areas.

"Marine litter is symptomatic of a wider malaise: namely the wasteful use ... of natural resources," said Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Program. "Some of the litter, like thin film, single-use plastic bags, which choke marine life, should be banned or phased-out rapidly everywhere, (because) there is simply zero justification for manufacturing them anymore, anywhere."

Although recycling bags is on the rise in the United States, an estimated 90 billion thin bags a year, most used to handle produce and groceries, go unrecycled.

A plastic bag ban is already being tested in China, where retailers giving out thin bags can be fined up to $1,464. According to one nationwide survey, 40 billion fewer plastic bags were given out in grocery stores after the law's enactment. Ireland has managed to cut single-use plastic bag consumption 90 per cent by levying a fee on each bag that consumers use.

The report was released to coincide with the UN's first official recognition of World Oceans Day, which Canada proposed in 1992.

It recommends that governments increase public and business awareness of the effects of littering in or near the sea -- and selectively impose fines on those who don't listen.

"This report is a reminder that carelessness and indifference is proving deadly for our oceans and its inhabitants," said Philippe Cousteau, chief executive officer of EarthEcho International, and an Ocean Conservancy board member.

Environment Canada administers a permit system controlling the disposal of waste and other material at sea.

The report says fines would work as a deterrent if they are as large as the $500,000 the United States imposed in 1993 on the cruise ship Regal Princess for dumping 20 bags of garbage into the sea.

Saying tourists have a "significant impact" on the state of the seas, the report praises Seychelles and Mauritius for contributing almost nothing to the marine litter load in the western Indian Ocean despite being popular tourism destinations.

But in an illustration of the power of ocean winds and currents, it says Seychelles has to put up with other people's garbage arriving during the southeast monsoon season. The report also laments that trash dumped off Western Australia ends up on the east coast of South Africa.

While Canadian waters were not among those studied, fisheries in northern regions such as the Shetland Isles are highlighted as having suffered economic losses because of garbage arriving from elsewhere.

Some 92 per cent of Shetland fishermen reported, for example, recurring problems with debris in nets. Estimates suggest each boat could lose between $10,500 and $53,300 a year because of the presence of marine litter, the report says.

Cigarettes are the main source of Canadian marine debris, according to a recent separate report from Ocean Conservancy.

Hazardous wastes, meanwhile, enter western Indian Ocean, South Asian seas and the Black Sea because of poor solid-waste management facilities in the respective littoral states.

The marine litter problem is predicted to increase profoundly off China and other parts of East Asia, where 60 per cent of the 1.8 billion people in the region live in coastal areas.

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