Plastic bags must be recycled - Plastics Europe

15 July 2007 23:59  [Source: ICIS news]

By Philippa Jones

 

PARIS (ICIS news)--Plastic bags must be reused or recycled by our throwaway society, according to leading industry bodies.

 

The plastic bag has had a rough ride with environmentalists demanding its disappearance. Now trade bodies are hitting back, saying the media and public must change their attitude.

 

In an interview with ICIS ahead of Monday’s relaunch of ICIS Chemical Business, Wilfried Haensel, newly appointed executive director at Plastics Europe, said that “plastic bags are being taken hostage for the general attitude of our throwaway society”.

 

Instead of phasing them out, he said consumers needed to be better educated about how to use plastic bags.

 

Peter Woodall, who runs communication campaigns for the UK Packaging and Films Association (PAFA) and the Carrier Bag Consortium (CBC), agreed, blaming the “popular media” for continuing to call the product a disposable bag.

 

“The key is getting people to reduce, reuse, recycle and recover," said Woodall.

 

“The plastic bag has excellent credentials and it is extremely reusable, but people are not educated to reuse,” he added.

 

Woodall highlighted that alternatives to plastic, such as paper bags, are worse for the environment over the whole life-cycle of a bag.

 

Paper bags generate 70% more air pollutants and 50 times more water pollutants than plastic bags because of the amount of energy required to produce and recycle paper bags, said the US Environmental Protection Agency.

 

Factories around the world churned out 4-5 trillion plastic bags in 2002, ranging from large trash bags to thick shopping totes and flimsy grocery sacks, according to the Worldwatch Institute, the US environmental research organisation.

 

Tens of thousands of jobs would be lost if plastic bags were phased out. In Canada, for example, of the over-100,000 jobs related to the plastics industry, 5,000-7,000 are involved directly in bags.

 

**An in-depth report appears in Monday's newly launched global weekly magazine, ICIS Chemical Business.

 

The magazine is a new publishing strategy by ICIS to draw on the power of print in the online age. It is designed to complement the market-leading 24-hour online ICIS news service which brings breaking news from around the globe.

 

ICIS Chemical Business in its weekly coverage will be features-led, providing its readers with the facts behind news headlines and in-depth market intelligence. The magazine, headquartered in New York, under the global editorship of Joseph Chang, provides coverage of key issues affecting the chemical and allied industries from more than 95 dedicated and specialist journalists in New York, London, Singpaore, Shanghai, Mumbai, Paris, Houston and other major world centres.

 

It has also broadened its coverage to previously untouched areas ultimately affecting the chemical industry, such as politics, socio-economics and end-users. The launch issue focuses on consumer trends and their impact on the chemical industry.

 

"As the chemical industry becomes truly global and booming markets like China are increasingly attracting interest from businesses around the world, it has become vital for us to reflect the global nature of the industry in a single magazine," said Penny Wilson, global editorial director, ICIS Chemical Business.

 

"Our vision is to broaden our coverage to allied subjects ultimately driving the industry, and never to be parochial in our approach or reporting. This is a magazine that readers will want to keep and refer to again and again."

 

See other features, free content and subscriber information on www.icis.com

 

By: Philippa Jones
+44 20 8652 3214

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