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Chile Becomes First Country In Americas To Ban Plastic Bags (ewn.co.za)

Posted by BeauHD on from the paper-or-plastic dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Eyewitness News: Chile's Senate has passed a bill that will prohibit the use of plastic bags in stores, with a vote in their House of Representatives overwhelmingly in favor of the measure, with 134 supporting the bill and one abstention. According to The Independent, the new law would give large retailers one year to phase out the use of plastic bags, and smaller businesses two years. This makes Chile the first country in the Americas to ban plastic bags, and officially recognize how important such a ban would be in the effort to reduce unnecessary single-use plastic waste.

At first, the measure was only meant to ban plastic bags in Patagonia, but it was approved by both the senate and president for the entire country. The Association of Plastic Industries registered Chile as using 3,400 million plastic bags per year, or 200 per person. Telesur reports that the Minister of the Environment, Marcela Cubillos, said the country needs a larger cultural change for people to start replacing plastic with reusable bags.

3 of 203 comments (clear)

  1. What about pet waste? by Jogar+the+Barbarian · · Score: 1, Interesting

    That's great and all, but where am I supposed to put pet waste? I can't flush litter box bombs down the toilet, because the litter will clog it. (I've tried) Damned if I'm going to use a reuseable bag for that...

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    1. Re:What about pet waste? by Sloppy · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Take a step back and think about whether it should even be culturally acceptable to walk around a neighborhood and shit on sidewalks and lawns.

      Critters and shit were around long before sidewalks and lawns had been invented. If the sidewalk and lawn people freak out whenever they see a piece of shit, then they should go back to whatever planet they came from.

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    2. Re:What about pet waste? by Rakarra · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Paper bags? How did people survive before plastic bags were invented?

      Their dogs just pooped all over the place and no one cleaned it up, that's how it was done way in the past.
      Paper bags are one option, biodegradable bags like BioBags are probably a better option.