ecobites

Global. Healthy. Lifestyle.

Move over “I’m Not a Smug Twat” bag. Another Anya Hindmarch knock-off has come to town - it’s the “I AM a Plastic Bag AND I’m 100% Recyclable” bag.

It was created by the Progressive Bag Alliance, an organization dedicated to ensuring that plastic bags are recycled, reused, and disposed of properly. Oh, and it’s founded by all of the big plastic bag manufacturers. I’d add another line to their mission - to promote the use of plastic bags.

They are here to remind us that plastic bags can be reused and recycled - and that they are better than paper bags. In fact, they are serious about this bag - it’s for sale on EBay, complete with some myths & facts that the Alliance wants you to know.

What they don’t discuss is that reusable bags are WAY BETTER than any plastic bag. In the US alone, they go through 100 BILLION plastic bags a year. They require petroleum, toxic chemicals, and tons of energy to make.

Great marketing campaign, PBA, but we’ll stick with our reusable bags. Congrats Anya, you’re makin’ em sweat.<br><br>Post edited by: envirofriend, at: 2007/08/31 17:21

What has been lost in the environmental movement is that recycling is the THIRD activity in the Reduce-Reuse-Recycling formulation.
Moreover, they are a hierarchy. As in all things, you reduce (use less bags), reuse (use your own bag) and recycle (when the bag is useless)

New children's book linked to international anti-plastic bags campaign


Publication of a new children’s book called “Diamond Island” by author Jernin Yates-Round is being linked with an international campaign to highlight the threat that plastic shopping bags pose for wildlife around the world – especially marine life.

What are the inhabitants of Diamond Island, somewhere in the Indian Ocean, to do? Their land is slowly but surely disappearing under the rising sea; something, they are told by Fou, the only human inhabitant, that is beyond their control!

Indeed, this is the potential scenario for so many low-lying islands and their predicament is graphically brought to life in Jernin’s new book.

One major complication, which Fou also announces is that the island is to be sold to developers!

And, to top it all, Maatin, the leader of the Mynah Bird flock has formed a breakaway group called “Party for Progress”. They actually want the island to be sold!

Maatin has promised them that if they support him as their leader there will be an endless supply of food. This was a very appealing prospect for the terns who, at that time, had to fly much further out to sea to get a reasonable catch of fish to keep them from being hungry.

In the middle of all the disarray a giant tortoise is rescued on the beach, barely alive he is nursed back to health; however he can’t remember anything about himself let alone his name.

The locals name him “Zamie” meaning friend in the local language.

During his stay on the island Zamie learns of many things, such as global warming, green house gasses and rising seas, all of which sound very scary. He begins to realise that a lot of bad things are happening on the island, and they all seem to be what Fou calls “negative progress”.

Zamie has a nagging suspicion that he is meant to be doing something special on beautiful Diamond Island; but what could it be?

And, of course, one of the things that Zamie takes it upon himself to do is set up a campaign to “Clean the planet of plastic bags”. A very important message to YOU about Zamie and his campaign.

The book, Diamond Island, can be downloaded for around £1.95p (US$4) or a paperback version bought for £6.78p (US$13.96). Jernin also wrote the very popular book “The song that nearly vanished” about Ticka the whale calf’s hazardous but essential journey from the Great Barrier reef to his feeding grounds thousands of miles away.

Hi Organic Momma, what site do we download a copy from? thanks:)

Try here:
www.lulu.com/content/1042229

MESSAGE ABOUT ZAMIE AND HIS PLASTIC BAGS CAMPAIGN

By Jernin
Published on July 24, 2007, 5:01 pm


Hi friends!

Our aim is to “Clean the planet of plastic bags”

In Diamond Island Florentin tells Zamie that if Fou had not been on Diamond Island, many Terns and other birds would have died.

Why? Because no one would have saved them from the entanglements and other hazards that washed ashore every day.

Zamie observes at first hand some of the horrors that happen to Diamond Island’s inhabitants because of human negligence and thoughtlessness. What Fou describes as ‘negative progress.’

Zamie left his ocean home and came to Diamond Island, alone in an unknown world. You’ll read about his deep unhappiness at missing his old world and friends?

Zamie went to Diamond Island because something terrible happened to someone dear to him. He was unable to save his sister Aura from a slow painful and dreadful end. And the reason was?

Yes! She swallowed a plastic bag thinking it was a jellyfish (food for turtles) and starved to death.

Let YOU the children of today make sure that Aura’s death wasn’t in vain.

Let YOU the children of today help save the other inhabitants of Diamond Island from cruel and needless deaths.

The survival of our beautiful planet we call ‘home’ may depend on YOU; the children of today.

Make it YOUR business to make a difference.

Will YOU be one today’s heroes?

Will YOU join Zamie in the struggle to save our earth, the only place we know in the universe where we can walk around, play, build our homes, the only place where we can live? Like Blanc says in the book, this planet is ‘our only home’.

Zamie, Fou and all your friends from the ever-diminishing Diamond Island say “YES!” you can make a difference here and now.

If we reduce the amount of plastic bags being used on a day-to-day basis, we are also helping Diamond Island and many thousands of other such islands vanishing from the face of the earth.

So you ask “how can I help in a very real way?”


Here are some things you can do:-

When you go shopping with your mum or dad, ask them to use recyclable shopping bags.
Put your school lunch in either brown paper bags or a reusable sandwich box.
When buying food at the school tuck shop, make sure not to use plastic bags. If your school uses plastic bags, you and your friends can write a letter to the principal asking him/her to consider using biodegradable bags.
Encourage your friends to do the same as you; explain why they should not use ordinary plastic bags or limit its uses to a bare minimum. Tell them that most of the plastic bags we throw away can kill or destroy. This is because plastic bags cannot be completely destroyed; they leave behind harmful residues which remain for thousands of years. If disposed of in land fill plastic chunks damage the soil, if burned they produce dangerous gases, and if thrown in the ocean can cause injury or death to sea creatures like Aura, Lotus and the terns…
Perhaps you could even start a club with your schoolmates. You could do something like -count how many times you can prevent plastic bags entering landfill. Let’s say you were able to stop Mum or Dad from using two plastic bags each time you went shopping, and let’s say you go shopping with Mum or Dad twice a week. That would work out at four shopping bags a week. It doesn’t seem like a lot, but if you multiply that by the number of children at your school and the number of schools in you state etc., it would amount to millions or even billions worldwide.
It’s possible to make a small change, which can have huge end results.