Why we should ban the bag and how Coles Bay did it!
Posted: 23.04.09 | Created by: Do Something
Written by Ben Kearney, who led the campaign that saw Coles Bay become plastic bag free in 2003.
Like me, we all need to learn how to live more sustainably into the future if we are going to tackle climate change. We have all heard the hard facts about Plastic Shopping Bags and why they are bad news for the environment. They cause damage in our oceans to animals like whales and turtles; they often blow out of landfill and cause damage by littering, blocking drains and potentially harming wildlife. And they take a thousand years to break down.
Whilst there are many reasons to ban plastic shopping bags, the most important reason for me is education - for people to wake up to how lazy we have all become and the damage this laziness is doing to our children’s future.
Break the habit - ban the bag
The convenience of a throw away plastic shopping bag to carry just a few items for a few minutes is symptomatic of the wasteful way modern life has evolved.
Only a few short decades ago our grandparents would have used some commonsense and taken a bag to the shops and reused it. When I was a child I used to collect bottles and cans and return them for pocket money and I think it gave me an appreciation of waste and its real cost.
When I first thought about banning Plastic Shopping Bags in Coles Bay, I realised that we have become addicted to not having to plan for our actions.
Banning them in our town in 2003 was a great way of protecting our National Park and marine life but also it gave the tens of thousands of tourists that visit the town each year the opportunity to experience Plastic Bag Free shopping.
The ban has in fact forced tourists and locals to have to plan to have some reusable bags when they go shopping whilst in the town. Since 2003 over a million people have visited Coles Bay and experienced this and seen that the local community have adapted and changed their habits. It has become second nature for them to carry reusable bags to the shops.
Community pride
We made it easy for the locals to change over by providing them all with 5 calico bags and we made it easy for tourists by having good strong reusable paper and calico bags available for a reasonable price at all the shops in Coles Bay as well as reusing a lot of cardboard boxes.
Of course there were some locals who were not too keen on the idea in the beginning and some visitors who didn’t like not being lazy! The interesting thing is that all of the locals are now very proud of what their community achieved and how the town’s ban has been used as a model in other communities right around the world.
The tourists have really appreciated the fact the community is so proud of their town and its beautiful National Park that they wanted to protect it from being littered with plastic shopping bags. Lots of them have gone home to their communities and followed our ban or just started using reusable bags and saying “no” to the shopkeeper who puts everything in a plastic shopping bag.
International example
Around Australia and around the world there are many towns now that have used the Coles Bay model successfully! The campaign in Coles Bay has received many awards and helped build a great community!
When we ban the bag finally in Australia we will have taken a big step, not just because it will be a good thing for the environment but because it will show that we are ready as a community to tackle many of the issues of climate change by changing habits and planning for the future and no longer taking the lazy option.
So give it a go - “Ban the Bag”!
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