Bags of hot air

Greenpeace ocean plastic — fake whale, fake filled with plastic for propaganda photos. See kids cheering camera.

Apparently the government plans fines of $100,000 for companies that hand out a free plastic bag. What tyranny is this, what cruel despotism fills our masters? These bullies bring no evidence to justify harsh punishment. Just because other countries fine such convenience doesn’t make it right, and first they must substantiate the harm we’re supposed to be causing.

The wonderful Jacinda said:

Every year in New Zealand we use hundreds of millions of single-use plastic bags – a mountain of bags, many of which end up polluting our precious coastal and marine environments and cause serious harm to all kinds of marine life.

Refusing to change would have meant there could be more plastic in the oceans by weight than fish by the year 2050, Ardern said. 

Could someone please check New Zealand’s annual use of free plastic bags? Try to exclude the ones consumers purchase. Greenpeace claims

over 2 billion single-use plastic bags that clog our communities, coasts, rubbish dumps and oceans each year.

However, the Packaging Forum, an industry group with a focus on recycling, said a ban would … take an estimated 800 million bags out of circulation. Big difference between those numbers; it’s an easy guess Greenpeace intends taking down the manufacturers of all our plastic bags.

Discover the actual mass of those bags ending up in landfills. They degrade quite quickly and those that don’t are easily squashed flat. They contribute little to the final volume of the landfill. Nor do they “clog” the landfills.

The few studies done on ocean plastic reveal 93%, near enough (??), of ocean plastic originates in about a dozen rivers running through poor countries in Africa and Asia. Countries prosperous enough to have well-organised rubbish collection and disposal systems, like New Zealand, contribute practically nothing. Though we could probably do with a couple of ultra-high-temperature incinerators to reduce the need for landfill sites (they can even generate some electricity).

Polythene, when burned, gives off nothing toxic, just a little carbon dioxide and water.

Most of the ocean plastic consists of much heavier plastic items such as ropes, bins, buoys and fishing nets washed overboard from fishing vessels, not chucked carelessly into streams or onto foreshores by us.

If we don’t complain now, we’ll be stuck with this left-wing oppression for a long time.

Real ocean.

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