Denied responsibility over the great economic issues like carbon emissions and pulp mills, or those with vast diplomatic ramifications like Japanese whaling, our neophyte Environment Minister, Peter Garrett, has turned his attention to plastic bags. Showing no bashfulness in employing the ABC's most overused word of 2007, he says it is, "absolutely" critical that we get cracking on phasing out plastic bags by the end of 2008.
Presumably he is considering a tax on the bags rather than outright banning but this was unclear from the remarks he made and his office could provide no clarification.
Plastic bags have long been a target for activists. They incorporate a galaxy of ogre-like features. They are made from oil, are part of packaging rather than something busybodies classify as being actually used, they are a big part of the rubbish chain, and they are the ultimate one-shot discardable product vilified by those who think we are running out of resources. Years of green bags have blazed the trail in showing a more politically correct way of carrying shopping.
Among the issues Mr Garrett raised were the costs plastic bags cause through landfill, affecting wildlife and garbage. All these tug at appealing concerns that may be inadequately catered for by normal market processes. In other words, the users of plastic bags might obtain benefits but impose costs on others as a result.
Careful examination of all of these concerns shows them to be baseless. Plastic bags are a trivial component of landfill and many would regard them as best being kept there since the landfill is lined and its contents insulated.
Plastic bags and harm to wildlife is a hoary old chestnut. It has about as much plausibility as when, in a Seinfeld episode, a Kramer golf ball got lodged in the blowhole of a whale.
The issue of rubbish is one that concerns many. According to the annual analysis of this undertaken by Keep Australia Beautiful, plastic material is the category with the highest volume of garbage. But the reports do not demonise plastic bags within the category and, indeed, the detailed tables suggest that plastic bags comprise only 0.005% of garbage items. This is miles less than paper, soft drink containers, beer cans, cigarette butts and a host of other items.
The point here is that if we decide there are spillover costs of waste products either in terms of the eyesore rubbish effect or the landfill effect, plastic bags would be way down the chain of targets.
Retailers do not supply these bags because they want to impose harm. Indeed, they would prefer not to supply them (at least for free) since this incurs costs (and some retailers have now actually begun charging for the bags). The point is that plastic bags are a considerable convenience to shoppers, and retailers are in the business of meeting consumer needs.
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