Ninety Percent Less Means Ninety Percent Cleaner

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Author: TheNinetyPercentProject

Started: October 31, 2009, 7:10:47 am

Target: NSW State Legislative Assembly

Category: Environment

Supporters:

Goal:

1,000

Goal Progress:

Status

Active

We, the undersigned, petition the New South Wales state government to introduce a legislated plastic bag levy across all NSW supermarkets and major retailers. The Ninety Percent Project hopes that by adopting a mandatory levy to be passed on entirely to consumers, NSW will reduce its plastic bag usage by 90% within five years, thus promoting a cleaner and healthier environment with more environmentally aware citizens.

Each year, Australian consumers use over 6.9 billion plastic bags, of which 50 to 80 billion inadvertently and deliberately end up as part of the litter stream. They are Australia's highest volume 'add-on' packaging. Plastic bags thus represent unnecessary environmental damage, including:
- pollution caused from the production process, including release of toxic chemicals
- clean up costs, which amount to AU$200 million per annum for local and state governments
- pollution of waterways and marine ecosystems
- visual pollution
- threat to land and marine animals through ingestion
- greater concentration of toxic compounds in marine environments

Government around the world, from Ireland to Italy to Taiwan, have introduced a range of ways to deal with the environmental concerns presented by plastic bags. Ireland under the Waste Management (Environmental Levy) (Plastic Bag) Regulations 2001 introduced a levy in March 2002 that required all retailers pass on the full amount to consumers. Since then, there has been an average 94% reduction in plastic bag consumption and suggested changes to overall consumer behaviour with regards to plastic bag use.

Australia needs to take action now on this widely-held environmental concern of the community. Plastic bags are an established part of Australian shopping but they do not need to constitute a problem to the ever-growing amount of environmental issues currently facing Australian society. Therefore, we propose that the NSW state government takes initiative and adopt a levy to decrease plastic bag consumption, to reduce environmental damage and to change consumer behaviour.

Ninety Percent Less Means Ninety Percent Cleaner.