New Zealand bans single-use plastic bags

Yahoo – AFP, Neil SANDS, July 1, 2019

Companies that break New Zealand's plastic bag ban will face heavy penalties
(AFP Photo/Drew Angerer)

Wellington (AFP) - New Zealand officially banned single-use plastic shopping bags Monday, introducing hefty fines for businesses that continue to provide them.

Plastic pollution has become a growing global concern, with a million birds and more than 100,000 marine mammals injured or killed every year by becoming entangled in packaging or ingesting it through the food chain.

Companies that break New Zealand's ban will face heavy penalties, including fines of up to NZ$100,000 ($67,000).

"New Zealanders are proud of our country's clean, green reputation and want to help ensure we live up to it," environment minister Eugenie Sage said.

"Ending the use of single-use plastic shopping bags helps do that."

Under the new rules, thin plastic single-use shopping bags can no longer be supplied -- but the law allows reusable carriers to continue being provided.

The legislation -- which was announced in August last year and came into force on Monday -- will have little practical effect, as New Zealand's major supermarkets have already voluntarily banned the bags.

However, Sage said it was putting the issue of recycling on the agenda.

"(The ban) doesn't go far enough, but what is really great is it's started the conversation," she told Radio New Zealand.

A million birds and more than 100,000 marine mammals worldwide are injured 

or killed every year by plastic packaging (AFP Photo/Silke Struckenbrock)

"People are now talking about single-use plastics and how we can phase them out."

Britain's Royal Statistical Society estimates 90.5 percent of all plastic waste -- some 6,300 million metric tons -- has never been recycled and is either in landfill or accumulating in the natural environment.

If current production and waste management trends continue, the ocean of plastic waste is estimated to almost double to 12,000 million metric tons by 2050.

More than 80 countries have already introduced bag bans similar to New Zealand's, according to the UN Environment Programme.

While it praised such initiatives, it said more needed to be done to minimise other sources of plastic waste including microbeads and single-use items such as straws.

Canada last month announced plans to ban disposable plastic items such as straws, cutlery and stir sticks from 2021.

The Pacific nation of Vanuatu will implement a ban in December on disposable diapers, which not only have non-biodegradable plastic linings but also use chemical absorbents which leach into the environment.

Sage said the New Zealand government was committing NZ$40 million ($27 million) to find ways to reuse plastic waste instead of sending it to landfill overseas.

"We have been sending our waste offshore for too long," she said.

"China and other countries refusing to take our waste is the wake-up call we need."

The issue of wealthy developed nations using poorer countries as trash dumps was highlighted this week when Canada had to accept back tonnes of rubbish it shipped to the Philippines years ago.

For years, China received the bulk of scrap plastic from around the world, but closed its doors to foreign refuse last year in an effort to clean up its environment.

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G20 agrees marine plastic pollution deal

New Zealand to ban single-use plastic bags

Yahoo – AFP, August 10, 2018

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said New Zealand uses "hundreds of millions" of
single-use plastic bags each year, many of which end up harming marine life
 (AFP Photo/Marty MELVILLE)

Wellington (AFP) - New Zealand became the latest country Friday to outlaw single-use plastic shopping bags, with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern saying they will be phased out over the next year as a "meaningful step" towards reducing pollution.

New Zealand uses "hundreds of millions" of single-use plastic bags each year, many of which end up harming marine life, Ardern said.

"We need to be far smarter in the way we manage waste and this is a good start," she said.

"We're phasing-out single-use plastic bags so we can better look after our environment and safeguard New Zealand's clean, green reputation."

Ardern said her coalition government, which includes the Green Party, was facing up to environmental challenges and "just like climate change, we're taking meaningful steps to reduce plastics pollution so we don't pass this problem to future generations."

Single-use plastic bags are among the most common items found in coastal litter in New Zealand and the environmental group Greenpeace welcomed the decision to outlaw them.

"This could be a major leap forward in turning the tide on ocean plastic pollution and an important first step in protecting marine life such as sea turtles and whales, from the growing plastic waste epidemic," Greenpeace Oceans Campaigner Emily Hunter said.

A United Nations report in June said up to five trillion grocery bags are used globally each year, which is nearly 10 million plastic bags per minute.

"If tied together, all these plastic bags could be wrapped around the world seven times every hour" and like most plastic garbage barely any is recycled, said Erik Solheim, head of UN Environment.

The UN said more than 60 countries had introduced bans and levies on single-use plastic items like bags.

But better waste management, financial incentives to change consumers' buying habits and research into alternative materials were needed to make any real change, it added.

Himalayan glaciers granted status of 'living entities'

Yahoo – AFP, April 1, 2017

The status of "living entity" was given to two glaciers as well as swathes of
the Himalayan environment, including waterfalls, meadows, lakes and forests

An Indian court has recognised Himalayan glaciers, lakes and forests as "legal persons" in an effort to curb environmental destruction, weeks after it granted similar status to the country's two most sacred rivers.

In a decision that aims to widen environmental protections in the mountainous region, the court granted the legal standing to glaciers Gangotri and Yamunotri that feed India's venerated Ganga and Yamuna rivers, which won the status in a landmark judgement in March.

"The rights of these entities shall be equivalent to the rights of human beings and any injury or harm caused to these bodies shall be treated as injury or harm caused to human beings," the highest court in Himalayan state of Uttarakhand said in its ruling on Friday.

It said Yamunotri glacier, which is the source for Yamuna river was shrinking at an alarming rate.

Gangotri, which feeds the river Ganga and is one of the largest glaciers in the Himalayas, is also "receding fast", the court said.

"In over 25 years, it has retreated more than 850 meters (2,800 feet)," a two-judge bench of justices Rajeev Sharma and Alok Singh said.

The court also extended the status of "living entity" to swathes of the Himalayan environment, including waterfalls, meadows, lakes and forests.

On March 20, the same court ordered that both Ganges and Yamuna rivers should be given "living entity" status to conserve them, in a decision cautiously welcomed by activists who expressed hope that it would signify more than just a symbolic gesture.

Both rivers are considered holy by millions of Hindus, who ritualistically bathe, drink and scatter the ashes of their dead in the water.

The rivers which criss-cross most of the country before flowing into the sea have witnessed massive pollution near human habitations mainly due to dumping of untreated sewage and industrial waste.

The court argued the unusual step was necessary because the hallowed rivers upon which Hindu rites are conducted were "losing their very existence".

New Zealand earlier last month recognised its third-largest river, ancestral and spiritual waters for its Maori people, as a living entity.

Successive governments in India have attempted with limited success to clean up the Ganges, which snakes 2,500 kilometres (1,553-mile) across northern India from the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal.