A meeting of Environment Ministers on plastic bag use has ended in a division between South Australia, who want to phase them out, Victoria, who want to impose a levy, and Peter Garrett, who wants to prove he’s no longer a greenie. / who wants to prove that being Environment Minister comes with some sort of actual power and isn’t just a cruisy pozzie to appease the greenies.
Yeah, Garrett’s firmly committed to eliminating the plastic bag menace! So long as it’s OK by the bags.
But Peter, it won’t impose additional costs on families if they DON’T USE THEM… isn’t that the idea?
Garrett said he wants retailers to explore all the options in front of them to reduce plastic bag use, apart from a levy or an outright ban. What’s that? I think I hear the sound of crickets…
Other options include putting a plastic bag over Peter Garrett’s head until we get an Environment Minister willing to consider a practical option.
Oh no, 10 cents a bag! How will working families survive? And what’s worse, they won’t even be able to afford a plastic bag in which to suffocate themselves!
10 cents a bag – that’s about 50 cents per average shop! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! There goes that half a Milky Way.
In fact a levy would penalise struggling families. Families struggling to get their shit together enough to remember to take their shopping bags.
The organiser of the National Plastic Bag Campaign said that a plastic bag levy wouldn’t be a burden, since supermarkets already pass the costs of plastic bags on through inflated grocery prices. Of course he’s just pissed off because he’s still got to pay his plastic bag tax while using green bags.
Since supermarkets already pass the costs of plastic bags on to customers through inflated grocery prices, we’ve got no choice but to keep using them until someone pries them out of our cold dead hands.
And if poor struggling families really can’t afford the recyclable bags, perhaps they can sell the violin they’re playing.
Gee, you might think with $31 billion of tax cuts coming our way, we might be able to afford a calico bag or two.
Garrett’s just concerned about losing votes. Of plastic bag manufacturers. / Of bagophiles.
As usual, Garrett’s standing up for the forgotten minority: the poor plastic bag manufacturers. How can we sleep while our bags are burning?
But if they ban plastic bags, what are we going to use to choke our rivers? They’re just not thinking straight.
But plastic bags aren’t even the real problem. The real problem is most animals’ reliance on oxygen. / pathetic addiction to breathing.
But what kind of pathetic wussy environment is going to be harmed by a few shitty plastic bags? Harden the fuck up, ecosystem!
Good to see Garrett’s targeting the really big issues here. Those fucking bags are the bane of my existence. Damn them to HELL!
It’s a tough choice: do we pick the plastic bag that will one day wind up choking an endangered species to death, or the green bag that’s been sweat-shopped by third-world child-slaves? It seems the best solution is to just shoot ourselves.
Plastic bags end up in the environment, choking or suffocating our endangered species. To save energy, I think we should cut out the middleman and just strangle the fuckers ourselves. / Surely to save greenhouse gasses we could ban the bags and just strangle the animals in person.
But the problem isn’t that are too many plastic bags. The problem is that they aren’t edible. / edible enough.
Back in the 1980s we were discouraged from bringing our own bags by enforced searchings at the checkout, so we all started using plastic ones. And now it’s back to using our own bags. Looks to me like the real danger is schizophrenic supermarkets.
Soon, South Australian shoppers won’t be able to get plastic bags, opening up a huge black market. Particularly profitable for bag-men.
If plastic bags are banned, we’ll just have to wrap the kiddies heads in gladwrap. And that’s just not the same.
Looks like those Adelaide sex-murderers will have to wrap their victims’ heads in gladwrap now. I feel for them, I really do.
But in South Australia, people will just use their money from recycled bottles to smuggle in plastic bags! Didn’t think of that, did they?
So Garrett’s solution is that Victorians and South Australians can wear the financial hardship of bringing down global warming, while the rest of us get off scot-free. I guess it sucks to be you.
And now, just as Garrett warned, Victorian families already struggling with mortgage stress will have to pay between 10 and 25 cents for each plastic bag. So if they bring their own bags, that’s a potential saving of a coupla bucks! Woo!
And now, just as Garrett warned, Victorian families already struggling with mortgage stress will have to pay between 10 and 25 cents for each plastic bag. Looks like they’ll have to sell one of the children.
In frustration, Garrett’s re-recording one of his biggest hits: “The Power and the Plastic”.
