Some Plastic Litter Good News Items from Resusit.com

As of January 1, 2011, single-use, non-biodegradable bags are banned in Italy, which uses 1/5th of the 100 billion bags annually used across Europe. While retailers argue that biodegradable bags are too expensive and not as durable (it’s the durable part that bothers us), similar bans in other countries have worked. In the two years since China banned the bag, it has kept 100 billion bags out of landfills.

Another good idea for reducing plastic bags is bag fees. They are proving successful in cities like Washington DC and countries like Ireland that put their PlasTax in effect in 2002. Washington DC’s little fee resulted in an 80% reduction in use-and-toss bags.

Fees work for a number of reasons, say environmental experts:

1. They are market-based solutions that get people to change their habits – and with a nudge not a shove. Even small, 5-cent fees make a huge impact.
2. The money collected from fees can be earmarked for clean-up, especially when funds are hard to come by.
3. It gives us choices. If we don’t want to pay for clean-up, we can bring our own bags and keep our money.

On the Styrofoam front:
Eben Bayer’s company turns agricultural waste into biodegradable packing material grown from a fungus. Polystyrene (Styrofoam) is commonly used to pack everything from delicate hardware and breakables for shipping, to our take-home meal from over-generous restaurant servings. None of that is recyclable, and when it degrades in nature, it releases carcinogens. Bayer's packing material, if adopted for widespread use, could reduce the production and disposal of polystyrene immensely.

From MSNBC:
Stockholm-based appliance company Electrolux AB recently produced a custom set of five vacuum cleaners made from water-borne plastic trash. The refuse was collected from different oceans and seas across the globe, with each locale’s most prevalent trash dictating its vacuum’s unique look.
Though the vacuums are not for sale, they do work. Electrolux hopes these fashionable, functional pieces of art will begin a discussion about the growing problem of water-bound plastic pollution and perhaps even move people away from the use-and-toss culture that led to the current situation.