Italy Bans Plastic Bags (VIDEO)

Italy's ban on single-use plastic bags took effect on New Year's Day.

This couldn't come too soon, considering that Italians use about 20 billion plastic bags per year. According to WWF biologist Eva Alessi, each Italian uses 400 plastic bags per year, and Italy is responsible for 25 percent of all plastic bag production in Europe.

Environmentalists are pleased with the ban because plastic bags are horrible on the environment, degrading extremely slowly and taking decades to decompose. They are also potentially harmful to marine life and other animals.

According to BBC News, the law for a gradual ban on single-use plastic bags was introduced in 2006 and given a deadline of January 2010. However, the ban was postponed due to pressure from plastic bag manufacturers, who complained that they needed more time to reduce inventories.

Critics worry that the ban will be difficult to implement, and that the steps of enforcement are unclear.

MSNBC provides the following report on the ban.

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Comments

[ANP]

02:02 PM on 01/12/2011

It's about time! I bring my own bags when shopping but sometimes I forget or don't always carry them with me, so when recieve a plastic bag, I recycle them. This country needs to enforce the recycling of all paper and get rid of the plastic bags!!

[Gogobags]

05:09 PM on 01/08/2011

That was about time, or maybe a little late for a country like Italy.
I think what we need is more advertisement against using plastic bags.No one in sound mind can use plastic bag and not reuse,after knowing what these plastic bags are doing to our planet, and eventually to us.
Reusing takes time and energy but it's a time and energy spent well.

[Minolta321]

01:21 AM on 01/05/2011

Italy is banning plastic bags. Figures. They are spending themselves bust and put their efforts into plastic bags instead of saving their nation from collapse.

My wife and I reuse plastic bags from the store. Trash can liners, lunch bags, that's the way we use most of them.

Now they are telling people that they must wash their reusable grocery bags because they are getting full of germs and disease. Reusable bags is going to wind up being like Corn Ethanol. First the radicalized progressives force us to do something, then they discover it's worse on the environment that what we were doing in the first place. Takes a lot of energy to wash reusable grocery bags. A lot more than it takes to create a plastic bag.

But that's too hard for some to figure out at this point.

[Mary Karius]

01:42 PM on 01/06/2011

your bags will be around long after you are dead and buried. How's that for a legacy?

[makebofapay]

02:05 PM on 01/06/2011

It is not that Italians focused ALL their attention on the plastic bag ban at the expense of other issues. that's a simplistic point of view. There is an island larger than Texas in the middle of the Pacific Ocean that is made up of discarded plastic. When plastic in the ocean breaks down, it beomes small particles that block the sunlight from reaching plankton in the ocean thus killing the ocean. So stop being selfish and lazy and use reusable bags or market baskets. And recycle anything plastic that you buy such as food containers.

[Aelfgifu]

03:59 PM on 01/09/2011

Well said.

[SteveDenver]

12:29 AM on 01/05/2011

I was at a Mexican discount grocery chain and they offered bags for sale. EVERYONE was using their own bags. Cardboard boxes, when available, are at the front of the store for those who didn't bring bags. The convenience of "throw away" needs to end.

[Minolta321]

01:25 AM on 01/05/2011

Turn off that computer. Stop wasting energy. Save the world.

[makebofapay]

02:07 PM on 01/06/2011

He is using his computer to make a good point. You are simply argumentative, negative, and too lazy to reuse your grocery bags.

[goodshelf]

07:43 PM on 01/05/2011

Let's hope the US takes a cue and follows Italy on this impressive undertaking.
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Green Products For Your Home & Family

[lucylou]

06:45 PM on 01/04/2011

The real story behind that picture is another:

Italy loses its sleek form & healthy eating to mimic America's waistlines...
Potato chips now outsell pasta.

francesca maggi
burnt by the tuscan sun

[monroele]

02:46 PM on 01/04/2011

Traders Joe , a German company, never had plastic bags. I remember that decades ago you had to pay for plastic bags in German supermarkets and people mostly used their own shopping bags.
Fortunately I see more and more stores offering reusable bags, but they also should start charging for plastic bags. I am sure the oil companies will come up with some other way to make money off their waste.

[fwwest]

02:42 PM on 01/04/2011

N C State Senator Marc Basnight got plastic bags banned on the Outer Banks of NC and it is working very well. I use reusable bags when I shop a good source for them is the greater good network. When you purchase from them you are also supporting charities.

[ManuOB1]

10:41 AM on 01/04/2011

Oh dear. What do they do when they have to walk the dog?

[lucylou]

06:43 PM on 01/04/2011

unfortunately, no one picks up the doo doo anyway. plastic being banned in shopping bags...I'm sure other bags will still be in full force
fmaggi
burnt by the tuscan sun

[cloudjungle]

10:00 AM on 01/04/2011

A great example for us to follow. And for those that say it can't work. You need go no further that COSTCO to find a store that doesn't have any to offer and is doing great. They recycle cardboard boxes or you bring your own. They will sell you reusable bags. I wish all stores would do it. For those that say they are recycled so no problem. I live near a county trash dump and it seems most are recycle either on the side of the street or as trash.

[gjdenk]

09:38 AM on 01/04/2011

It's well past time for this country to ban plastic bags as well! Stores should have a special week or two of giving away reusable bags to their customers prior to charging a small fee for each plastic or paper bag that is used.

We've got to start reframing how we look at things.... Instead of looking at this issue and saying we'd prefer to keep using plastic bags because we don't want to be bothered remembering to bring a reusable bag..... we should be asking ourselves, do we prefer that 'convenience' more than we value a healthy environment in which to live and pass on to our children? We should also come to fully appreciate that abusing our natural world comes with a steep price tag that if we really factored it in, no one would want to pay.

[Kathy McKee]

09:32 AM on 01/04/2011

Isn't it sad that once again the US is behind the times in the battle to clean up the earth. The banning of plastic bags has been in effect in the town I work in for over 2 years and people have adjusted to it very well. We just have to learn that sometimes it's not about the money or the convenience. It's about the health of our children and grandchildren and leaving them a world they can live and grow in.
WaywardMom

[Minolta321]

01:24 AM on 01/05/2011

You probably supported Corn Ethanol too. You know they found it's far more polluting to create it than to use gas right? Just because some poor, collapsing nation does something they CLAIM is green doesn't mean you have to be ashamed of America. Even Michelle Obama is finally proud of America????

[skraeling]

07:20 PM on 01/06/2011

in case you haven't noticed, the US is on the verge of collapse...:Michelle Obama merely stated what the droolers on the right refuse to accept..that the US has done very little in past few decades to be proud of....she is black, and why would she not think that the majority of people, your kind excluded, voted for a man of mixed race when a mere 40 years ago, he might have been lynched by your type....

[ScapeGoat]

09:12 AM on 01/04/2011

This is a step in the right direction. More countries should follow Italy's lead.
I use reusable bags when I go to the grocery store. Shop Rite actually gives you a nickel off for each reusable bag you have.

[Hugh-Gee]

09:11 AM on 01/04/2011

I recycle many of my plastic grocery bags as trash-can liners. That's better, in IMHO, than buying bags for the purpose. Those which I don't use, I recycle. I'm glad such a ban isn't in place where I live.

[skraeling]

07:21 PM on 01/06/2011

they still don't disappear...

[mioffe]

08:50 AM on 01/04/2011

For disposable plastic bag and many others plastic product we have very simple solution, granulate them, with many others waste of human activities and put them under new growing trees. For hundred years they will use nutrition from all of waste to grow.
Reusable shopping bags are not convenient and have more microbe in them.

[Galong]

09:00 AM on 01/04/2011

Wow, I'm guessing you didn't major in science. :-) Breaking bags up doesn't break them down. Plastic is not a nutrient. Granulated plastic ends up in the food chain. A heavily polluted earth is not convenient either. Most folks don't eat reusable shopping bags, so the microbe comment is not valid. I could go on.

[ScapeGoat]

09:09 AM on 01/04/2011

Plastic has no nutritional value to trees or animals. Try eating a plastic bag for sustenance.

[spawoman]

08:07 AM on 01/04/2011

Great! I love my cloth bags and prefer them to plastic.