Plastic Not Fantastic

Plastic Not Fantastic !

It seems as though I have an opportunity to consume 15 plastic bags every day in Dubai. Today I purchased a chocolate bar only to pass the plastic bag that came with it back to the cashier. Why does every shop, gas station or food outlet insist that the cashier offer the customer a plastic bag for their goods?

Plastic bags are very damaging to the UAE environment - so we are asking for your help. You can help trying to help us reduce the promotion of plastic bags in retail store - and for the month of May, cutting down on your plastic bag consumption, simply expressing your support on the Dubai Lime Forums and by sending this article to your friends!

Before you take a plastic bag from the cashier on your next trip to the shops consider the following! Here are some questions we should ask ourselves whenever we are handed a plastic bag:

Do I need to take as many plastic bags in supermarkets?
Do I need a plastic bag for an item purchased that is already well packaged by the manufacturer?
Could I bring my own shopping bag when making purchases?
Am I going to eat or use this in the car? Could I carry my own plastic bags?

We only use plastic bags for moments but did you know plastic bags however, can take between 15 and 1000 years to break down in the environment. That being said plastic bags may be eco-friendly in solid landfill, because of their "stabilizing qualities, leachate minimization and minimizing of greenhouse-gas emissions" of course - the ideal situation would not to be creating things just to dump into a landfall anyway!

In the marine environment plastic bag litter is lethal, killing many birds, whales, seals and turtles every year. There is a lot of plastic floating around in the sea, most of it gets deposited on small islands with fragile eco systems and the plastic kills off the local species and has devastating knock on effects on the food chain. When an animal is killed by ingesting plastic bags its body decomposes and the plastic is released back into the environment where it can kill again.

The Myths

Plastic bags are not free to consumers - they are actually adding money on your grocery bills indirectly - with less plastic bags, product prices would reduce.

Not all litter is deliberate. 47% of wind borne litter escaping from landfills is plastic - much of this is plastic bags.

It's just not possible - Ireland has reduced its plastic check-out bag usage by 90% and in April 2003 Coles Bay in Tasmania successfully banned plastic check-out bags in all their retail stores. In the first twelve months, Coles Bay stopped the use of 350,000 plastic check-out bags - so it is possible. We simply need to make a conscious decision to reduce our plastic consumption

What you can do

10 easy ways to reduce your plastic consumption and one obvious one.

Recycling is obvious! There are recycling stations in the UAE - Please use them!

1) Don't take any - carry one with you in your bag or car to reuse
2) Use an eco friendly bag to take shopping
3) If you do collect bags reuse them as bin bags
4) Even better use them on your next shopping trip
5) Try to pack more shopping into one bag
6) Ask your local retail store not to offer them unless a customer asks
7) Ask your retail store to offer sustainable reusable bags to buy
8) Write on the forum - write to the stores
9) Don't use the stores that don't offer sustainable bags
10) Try and say no if you are offered a plastic bag at a shop
11) Ask stores to get rid of very small

Support the reduction of plastic bags in the UAE on the Dubai Lime Forum

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