I have previously posted two blog entries on the scourge of plastic bags in the environment - "Witches Knickers" in January described the problem and a February followup noted that Ireland was taxing them. Now today the Washington Post is carrying this article about a young British woman who has succeeded in getting her small village to ban plastic bags, inspired by the devastation to wildlife in the Pacific:"All you could smell was death," Hosking recalled, sitting snugly in a 600-year-old pub in her rainy home town, which has been transformed by her epiphany two years ago on Midway Atoll.
The beach on Midway, 1,300 miles northwest of Honolulu, was covered with thousands of dead albatrosses rotting in the tropical sun. In their split-open bellies, the BBC wildlife film producer said she saw the plastic that had killed them: cigarette lighters, pens, toys, pill bottles, knives and forks, golf balls and toothbrushes.
The waves were a thick stew of dead birds that had eaten bright-colored plastic pollution they thought was food. Hosking put down her camera and waded into the waves to try to help the birds still alive. She scooped up a young one, which found the strength to bite her, then died in her arms.
"I just broke down crying because I thought she was going to make it," said Hosking, 34, rubbing the small scar on her hand. "That day has never left me..."
So last May 1, Modbury became Europe's first plastic-bag-free town. Overnight, carrying plastic bags became as socially acceptable as swearing in church... Hosking said that 120 British cities and towns are exploring a ban on plastic bags, and nine have already banned them. She said two towns in Hawaii are about to follow the Modbury model...
More details at this Washington Post link; thanks to LBRCAT for sending me the link. You can also read more about it at the town's website - plasticbagfree.com.
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