[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=oZLw_QINf-E[/youtube]
Everyone knows how terrible plastic bags are. They take hundreds of years to biodegrade, pollute our landfills and waterways, and most plastic bags cannot be recycled (only 5% of plastic bags are actually recycled). To add insult to injury, it is cheaper to produce new plastic bags than to recycle existing ones.
The Council For A Beautiful Israel has something to say about that. They’ve come out with a campaign that asks us to reduce our consumption of plastic bags as much as possible or, at the very least, to use One Less Bag.
The goals of the campaign are to change plastic consumption habits and immediately reduce plastic bag consumption by 1% (meaning, 5 million plastic bags a month), and also to create awareness of the environmental damages caused by plastic bags.
The campaign has already teamed up with tennis player Shachar Pe’er and Channel 10 to broadcast the short advertisement above, which visually clarifies how plastic bags effect the planet.
But now, anti-plastic bag activists are taking to the streets with plastic bag alternatives in hand. This week, volunteers could be spotted on the streets of Tel Aviv, explaining why plastic bags are damaging and handing out alternatives such as reusable bags and biodegradable plastic-like bags.
The biodegradable bags look and feel exactly like regular plastic bags, but are made out of starch materials that biodegrade within four months. Sounds good, right? Why aren’t stores all over the country getting on the bandwagon, you might ask? Because they’re slightly more expensive to produce, costing around 50 agorot per bag.
There are currently two companies producing these bags in Israel – Israkaps Ltd. (03-7521188) and Razpol Ltd. and if you own a business, you might consider buying your next batch of bags from them.
See also:: Supersol Just Got Greener, Recycling Plastic Bags Into… Beautiful Handbags
Author: Karen Chernick
Much to the disappointment of her Moroccan grandmother, Karen became a vegetarian at the age of seven because of a heartfelt respect for other forms of life. She also began her journey to understand her surroundings and her impact on the environment. She even starting an elementary school Ecology Club and an environmental newsletter in the 3rd grade. (The proceeds of the newsletter went to non-profit environmental organizations, of course.) She now studies in New York. Karen can be reached at karen (at) greenprophet (dot) com.
