Tax plastic bags

Thursday, May 05, 2011

Dear Editor,

This is an open letter to Minister of Finance Audley Shaw.

It is time you took a broader approach to financing the annual budget and while doing so you could be helping present and future generations to be able to live in our small island nation.

From Australia to Europe, Africa, China, Taiwan, the UK and all across the US, politicians and corporations are pondering banning or taxing plastic bags. I am suggesting you follow suit with immediate effect.

Ireland took the initiative in 2003 by implementing a hefty surcharge that has spurred the public there to spurn plastic bags almost completely in favour of reusable cloth totes. In Ireland, all money from the plastic bag tax goes directly to the environment ministry for use in enforcement and clean-up projects. Between the Irish government tax on bags, an effective advertising campaign, and public support, plastic bag usage has dropped 94 per cent in a matter of weeks.

If the Irish experience is any guide, there is no need to ban them. The tax will do.

It's been eight years since Ireland introduced a 15c/$12.90 tax on every plastic bag. The plastic bag has almost disappeared from view! Oh sure, you can still find them and every so often you'll see some sucker paying (now 22c/$18.92) for a bag, but mostly you see people using reusable canvas bags rather than buying the plastic ones.

Italy has banned plastic bags, effective January 1, 2011, making it the first country to ban plastic bags in Europe. Retailers are now banned from providing shoppers with polyethylene bags, although they can use bags made of such material as biodegradable plastic, cloth or paper.

Taiwan taxes the bags, and the cities of Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Mumbai, India, ban them to prevent flood-inducing storm-drain clogs during the monsoon season.

The fact is that the bags contribute to greenhouse gases, clog up landfills, litter streets, streams and the ocean.

Unsightly pollution appears to be behind China's January announcement of a countrywide ban on the thinnest of totes and a tax on others.

Thin plastic bags have been banned in South Africa since 2003; thicker ones are taxed. Similar measures exist in Eritrea, Rwanda, Somalia, Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda.

Nearly 37 billion plastic bags were used in the first weeks of 2008, according to reusablebags.com, a figure that rises by about a half million bags every minute.

Number of nondegradable plastic bags used worldwide annually: 4 trillion to 5 trillion. Amount of oil needed to produce 100 million nondegradable plastic bags: 430,000 gallons.

The vast majority are not used again, ending up as waste, landfill or litter. Because plastic bags are light and compressible, they constitute only two per cent of landfill, but since most are not biodegradable they will be there for decades.

Apart from the plastic bags, I believe you should implement a hefty surcharge on the PET bottle industry as these bottles have a similar negative effect on the environment. We find them on the road, the gullies, the landfill, they float in the ocean endangering marine life, they clog our fragile sewer systems creating a health hazard.

Ironically, biodegradable plastic bags, bottles and shrink wrap are available globally. The businesspeople will initially be resistant to integrate biodegradable products, but if you tax them at port of entry for importing a hazardous entity (raw material) they will be forced to reconsider. Mr Joseph Businessman is concerned about the bottom line for his company, not the environment.

I suggest you meet with the Jamaica Manufacturers Association, NEPA, Ministry of Health and SBA to move forward speedily.

Whether you choose to act on this recommendation or not will be seen by Jamaicans as an opportunity placed before you to help the country financially, environmentally and exhibit testicular fortitude!

What's my problem with the law? Well, first of all, I don't like the idea that law-abiding citizens must be punished because the state is incapable of enforcing its laws (on littering). Increasing fines and enforcing the litter law would also help the country financially and environmentally. The government needs to instil the fear that if you don't follow the rules, there will be big consequences. Make the heart of the anti-litter campaign a hefty fine along with public cleaning assignments - community centres, roadways, bus stations, markets and schools as they do in Singapore. Just like a traffic ticket, stricter enforcement of laws by the police will result in litter offences rising, but more fines for the government coffers and hopefully a cleaner Jamaica. Whether it be a cigarette butt, plastic bag or a plastic bottle, everyone needs to learn to hold on to their rubbish till they find an empty bin.

I don't like having to remember to bring a bag with me and (mostly) I don't like walking to the store with an empty bag swishing along with me. However, it is a small price to pay in today's shrinking environment!

Bagga Manfield

Manchester

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