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"Sainsbury's launched I'm Not A Plastic Bag in 450 stores on the 25th April. Due to overwhelming demand all stock has now sold out." I heard in the greengrocers (yes, an exotic location for fashion gossip), that Blackpool had a queue to buy these shopping bags,with people coming from Preston to buy them and a quick look at ebay has £5 shopping bags going for £7 and the original designer ones for £50+ quid. According to the BBC they are made in China (big on sweatshop conditions, low on workers rights, eg. to have a break, fair pay) and flown here (so a big carbon footprint). So really just a way of getting a luxury brand lots of press and fake green credientials. I wish people would get a grip.
So I made one myself.
So I made one myself.
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First you need a bag. For superduper eco ethical credentials you need an organic fairly traded bag. This is a tote I think in the US and a shopping bag in the UK. People Treeprovided the one I used for £5 plus postage. It has a print on one side. The other item you need is a marker pen or fabric pen. I used a Dylon fabric pen in Black which cost about £1.20. (I have no idea about the ethics of Dylon, so don't blame me if they turn out to be supernasties, as there was no choice of make at my local haberdashery "Blacks" on Deansgate, Blackpool, Lancashire).This photo is of the Sainsbury's Anya Hindmarch bag which had people queuing to buy all over the UK & sold out.
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Plastic bags are lethal. Plastic kills at least 2 million birds, whales, dolphins, seals, seal lions and turtles every year. They choke or get tangled in the plastic and die. Or they eat plastic, leading to internal infections, starvation and death.
There are 46,000 – 1,000,000 pieces of plastic debris floating near the surface of every square mile of ocean worldwide. Nearly 90% of floating marine litter is plastic. 100 million tons of plastic has entered the world's oceans. The amount of plastic doubles in the worlds oceans every three years.
Plastic does not dissolve; it breaks into tiny pieces and stays there for up to 1,000 years, contaminating soil, waterways and oceans and entering the food web when eaten by animals. At this size it is eaten by every single organism in the world's oceans including the great Blue Whale.
Since the 1950ies almost every piece of plastic that we have ever made, used and thrown away is still here on this planet and will be here for centuries to come.
About four-fifths of all marine litter comes from land, swept by wind or washed by rain off highways and city streets, down streams and rivers, and out to sea. Also some is fly-tipped off cliffs and dumped off beaches. Only 20% comes from boats.
This information is taken from the meticulously researched website by Rebecca Hosking. All facts were checked by four independent experts and come from scientific research.
http://www.plasticbagfree.com/
- so, who has counted this?
46,000 – 1,000,000 pieces of plastic debris floating near the surface of every square mile of ocean worldwide.
-crap, this is expounded figure based on one measily study. I'm not denying that there is alot of plastic waste floating in the ocean. I just find this statistics unfounded.
Plastic does not dissolve; it breaks into tiny pieces.
-everything breaks into little pieces - they are could "molecules". and for pure material, atoms!
Since the 1950ies almost every piece of plastic that we have ever made, used and thrown away is still here on this planet and will be here for centuries to come.
-well, durrr fred. where else is it going to go? I guess I have to point out that plastic hasn't yet developed into a conscious and thinking life form that has mastered space flight.
About four-fifths of all marine litter comes from land.
- you might notice that the marine environment is made of water. in water things float or sink. how much matter is floating on water? how much matter that floats comes from the marine environment? it stands to reason that the fact that four-fifths of all marine litter comes from land is that this material is more likely to float due to lower density. and what is the composition of this four-fifths of all marine litter? me thinks possibly wood is a good example of floating marine litter. Also witches and ducks float.
Only 20% comes from boats -how many boats are there? if you think about that ratio 20% boats to 80% land and then postulate the amount of marine litter that would be generated by coastal cities - e.g. Tokyo pop 25,000,000, NY pop huuuge, etc. 20% from boats is either a monsterous amount of marine litter - like these guys must be working overtime to litter the marine environment or cities and land don't really litter that much.
This information is taken from the meticulously researched website by Rebecca Hosking. All facts were checked by four independent experts and come from scientific research.
-please, experts!!! meticulously researched website!!! Ever heard the expression "I saw it on the internet so it must be true." I'm an expert in Bio-Ethics (i have post grad degree in this), I'm an expert in living in non-english speaking countries (2 years eastern europe, 4 years Japan), I'm an expert in driving a car (17 years experience), I'm an expert in brushing teeth (34 years experience), I'm an expert at peeing whilst standing and not getting my feet wet {at least 75% of the time} (31 years). I could go on. just because you call yourself an expert doesn't mean you are. it may just indicate that you are stuck in one area and can't move on.
I'll state my main point again -
plastic bags = whoopy do.
lets not be distracted by this one pissy little token subject/political point.
lets look at what is put in the plastic bags and be more concerned about that.
don't be fooled by the whole minor singular issue to distract us from the bigger picture.
thanks