Ban hands
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 1, Insightful
Nobody likes litter. I think this ban on plastic bags is short-sighted. Unless South Africa bans hands, they won't be getting to the root of this litter problem.
plastic or paper?
by
Bowling+Moses
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· Score: 4, Insightful
I can see how they want to get rid of the unsightliness of plastic bags blowing around everywhere, but this solution may be flawed. In a book I read on University of Arizona's famed garbology project (official website here), plastic has some advantages over paper. Easier to recycle, compresses better, and in a sanitary landfill, well, decomposition's bad. You'd prefer it to dessicate and sit there more or less inert and stable. The only landfill where there's much decomposition is going on is at Fresh Kills landfill in New York, conveniently located on the coast so it stays wet and the tides agitate the toxic sludge. However the problem facing South Africa looks like its going after is a litter problem, which maybe could be better fixed by building up the infrastructure to handle the garbage problem. While that may be a better, more permanent solution its also harder and more expensive to implement. Although it does remind me of one of Iraq's current problems, that being piles of trash that haven't been picked up in months and are still a low priority. Too bad it's also a recipe for a cholera epidemic.
Slashdot's No Fun Anymore
by
fm6
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Are all the editors too busy playing The Sims to actually read the articles before posting them? South Africa hasn't banned all plastic bags, or even most of them. They've only banned plastic shopping bags. And not even all of those -- just the super-thin ones that aren't worth recycling.
Which sounds pretty sensible to me. If these bags had even a tiny monetary value, they'd soon be scavanged up by SA's huge impoverished underclass. By forcing merchants to use recyclable bags, the solve an ecological problem and inject a little money into the lower economy too.
Re:There's recycled and repolymerized
by
ichimunki
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· Score: 3, Insightful
"Paper or plastic" is a false dichotomy. The best shopping bags are made of cloth. Natural fiber cloth bags can last a very long time-- obviating the need for single or limited use bags. And waste reduction (through reuse) is far more important than any level of recyclability. Natural fiber cloth bags can also theoretically be recycled into paper.
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Nobody likes litter. I think this ban on plastic bags is short-sighted. Unless South Africa bans hands, they won't be getting to the root of this litter problem.
I can see how they want to get rid of the unsightliness of plastic bags blowing around everywhere, but this solution may be flawed. In a book I read on University of Arizona's famed garbology project (official website here), plastic has some advantages over paper. Easier to recycle, compresses better, and in a sanitary landfill, well, decomposition's bad. You'd prefer it to dessicate and sit there more or less inert and stable. The only landfill where there's much decomposition is going on is at Fresh Kills landfill in New York, conveniently located on the coast so it stays wet and the tides agitate the toxic sludge. However the problem facing South Africa looks like its going after is a litter problem, which maybe could be better fixed by building up the infrastructure to handle the garbage problem. While that may be a better, more permanent solution its also harder and more expensive to implement. Although it does remind me of one of Iraq's current problems, that being piles of trash that haven't been picked up in months and are still a low priority. Too bad it's also a recipe for a cholera epidemic.
Which sounds pretty sensible to me. If these bags had even a tiny monetary value, they'd soon be scavanged up by SA's huge impoverished underclass. By forcing merchants to use recyclable bags, the solve an ecological problem and inject a little money into the lower economy too.
"Paper or plastic" is a false dichotomy. The best shopping bags are made of cloth. Natural fiber cloth bags can last a very long time-- obviating the need for single or limited use bags. And waste reduction (through reuse) is far more important than any level of recyclability. Natural fiber cloth bags can also theoretically be recycled into paper.
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