Using Plastic Shopping Bags? You Might Land in Jail
Plastic bags are the curse of modern society. Made from petroleum or natural gas based products, they can take up to a hundred years and more to decompose. Meanwhile, they become serial killers, clogging drains and waterways, and causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of birds and marine animals who become entangled in or eat the plastic bags.
Plastic bags, however, have also become the icon of convenience shopping and trying to pry this icon from a shopper’s grasp is one of the major issues confronting officials and politicians around the world. Some countries and cities have opted for bag bans, others for bag tax.
But officials in Delhi, where the streets are not lined in gold but littered with plastic bags, have taken a giant leap forward and announced that plastic bags will be outlawed altogether. New guidelines were released earlier this month declaring that the “use, storage, and sale” of plastic bags of any kind or thickness will be banned in Dehli.
Those who ignore these guidelines will a severe fine and risk five years jail time. Draconian, perhaps. But in a city where – by conservative estimates – over 10 million plastic bags are used every day, city officials have decided enough is enough.
They say that they will go soft on everyone initially, giving them time to switch to alternative bags such as jute, paper, and cotton bags. But how they are going to enforce this in the long run is unclear.
As you can imagine, environmentalists are applauding the move while shopkeepers and retailers say it will simply end up costing the consumer.
Image: eflon
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading ...
Bay vs. Bag
XHello there! If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic. San Francisco may be the
The Global Menace of Urban Tumbleweed
XHello there! If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic. There’s only one thing worse
Rights of Plastic
XHello there! If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic. It was only about a
Rio De Janeiro’s Eco Barriers: Protecting the Environment or Hiding the Slums?
XHello there! If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic. Debate is raging over Rio
|
Bookmark |
1 Comment
January 22nd, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Make me pay more so I don’t have to see them blowing in the wind in my backyard! I’ll do it!!!
Welcome! The comment box is all yours to say what you like. Just make sure you use a real name, not a site or company, so you don't get sent to the spam bin. (That makes us sad.)