At the beginning of 2017 disposable plastics were banned in India’s capital city Delhi, in 2016 England introduced a 5p charge for plastic bags and saw an 85 per cent drop in usage.
NSW is now the only state in Australia that has not banned single-use plastic bags and the plastic free mermaid, AKA Kate Nelson, brought together a group of people at Main Beach in Byron Bay ‘to show that we are sick of seeing them blowing around our parks, getting caught in tree branches, and inevitably flowing to our waterways.’
Every year approximately 500 billion plastic bags are used worldwide and scientists estimate it will take between 500 to 1,000 years for all of single-use plastics to degrade into the environment.
‘Over the last ten years Australian state environment ministers have pondered legislation to ban single-use plastic bags, in this time over 1.2 billion have ended up in the litter stream,’ said the plastic mermaid.
‘Even as you are reading this 7,150 plastic bags are going to “landfill.” What a waste.’
The ‘Ban the bag in NSW’ rally asked for a strong ban on plastics to ensure that they are not just replaced by thicker ‘reusable’ plastic bags or biodegradable bags that can still choke marine life.
‘We want all single-use plastic bags banned from being distributed here in NSW. We can bring our own bags. We can use boxes. We can pay extra if we forget,’ said the plastic mermaid.
‘We are sick of seeing images of sea creatures suffering because of our love of convenience. We are sick of whales washing up dead on beaches with bellies full of plastic bags. We are sick of seeing turtles unable to swim below the surface of the water because they have swallowed too much plastic and are now too buoyant to dive deep.’
You can find the plastic free mermaid on Facebook and Instagram to find out more about how to use less plastics.
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