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Australia Greens support plastic bag ban

Local Greens MLC Lynn MacLaren will this week in Parliament make a last ditch effort to save a proposed local law which would ban plastic bags in Fremantle.

The City of Fremantle, Western Australia, local law is being challenged in the Legislative Council. “It is apparent that the Standing Committee who must review these local laws isn’t prepared to knock them out, but wants Parliament to debate their merits.”

I strongly support the initiative. It is supported by the community, is progressive environmentally, and will have no economic burden,” said Ms MacLaren.

“Regulating plastic bag use to this degree may be a first for a city in Western Australia, but is happening all over the world to look after our environment, there is only good to come from this local law”.

The Local Law seeks to reduce the use of plastic shopping bags within the City by: 1) Prohibiting retailers from providing “single use plastic bags”; and 2) Requiring retailers to charge a minimum fee of 10 cents for each “alternative shopping bag” that is provided to customers.

With the whole of South Australia having banned single-use plastic bags, Ms MacLaren pointed out that the state has reduced its plastic bag pollution by 400 million a year, with no detriment to the community.

“Shoppers have an option to bring their own bag, or pay a very small fee for a bag. I have no idea why anyone would oppose this, or attempt to deem it as impinging on State law”.

“The fact is that retailers factor into their prices the cost of supplying plastic bags free – the Fremantle initiative simply makes the cost more transparent and gives consumers an option to avoid paying for plastic.

“Fremantle will be further reducing its already low carbon footprint”.

“We are a coastal town and we know that plastic bags take hundreds of years to degrade whilst killing over 100,000 whales, seals and turtles every year across the planet. It’s time to shift away from this easily avoidable pollution”.

10/29/2013 – 00:00

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