Éric Darier
The year 2011 has begun with good news. The consumption of plastic bags has decreased to 80% in some grocery chains such as Metro ( Radio-Canada). Bravo to consumers who appear to be somewhat more advanced than the governments!
However, annual consumption of plastic bags in Canada, even after this dramatic decline, still 2 860 million or about 84 bags per year per capita.
The impact of 2 860 billion plastic bags
plastic bags is oil and chemicals. Most plastic bags end up in landfills, will long time to decompose and release toxic chemicals into the soil and sometimes in the water. Too many plastic bags pass unfortunately also in our streets in the wind! That's why most of us are aware of the pollution of plastic bags because it is a highly visible pollution. However, the worst pollution are not necessarily those that are most visible.
But back to 2 860 billion plastic bags annually consumed in Canada yet. This still represents about 84 plastic bags per Canadian per year. As each bag produces about 10 grams of CO2 for its production, annual emissions CO2 per capita are about 840 grams. Is that a lot? Yes and no. It's still 2860 tonnes of CO2 annually across Canada. By cons, when you know that every Canadian is averaging around 22 tonnes of CO2 per year, plastic bags represent only 0.004% of our emissions of greenhouse gas emissions. This small percentage does not mean that reducing consumption of plastic bags is not used much. Reducing consumption of plastic bags is just one of thousands of small gestures in our everyday life that can put us in the right direction. However, do not stop at plastic bags, or make a fixation and moralistic nor brag as did some retailers in an attempt to greenwash ( greenwashing ).
Misuse attention
The great media fanfare on reducing consumption of bags in place should not make us forget a few things:

· - success in reducing consumption of plastic bags is largely due to the fact that many consumers were willing to act and that public opinion is ahead of governments and businesses, especially if there are viable alternative and easy to replace.
· - Plastic bags in question affect only the area of food retailers.
· - Plastic bags are a tiny portion of the wrapping products which are placed in bags. Too many products have a double, triple or even quadruple packaging. Selling fruits, which have a package called natural skin, plus a plate styrofoam and wrapped in clear plastic is overkill and not very environmentally friendly.
·
is the government to adopt mandatory standards for the Prohibition of the overpack. In the meantime, I urge you to leave the wrapping at the checkout to send the message to the stores that it is also their responsibility to manage the source, this problem, not to individual consumers and taxpayers nor city that we all are.
No false solutions
newspaper columnist Press , Cardinal Francis hit right on the issue of plastic bags. I agree in the same direction. The so-called volunteers are less effective than those specifically required on a topic that is not bad consensus. Rather than listening to only the retailers' lobby, the politicians had better be more attentive to citizens and especially to anticipate proactively with firm policies, the trends already and have less fear of refractories and supporters of the status quo.
The laissez-faire and the will of the governments produce rather perverse effects that complicate and often exacerbate the problems. Again, Cardinal Francis illustrates this phenomenon well in plastic bags so-called degradable.
In fact, biodegradable bags are in the current context, false solutions that germinate in the absence of clear government policies, really green and binding. According to Francis Cardinal: "The bags compostable, biodegradable and oxo-biodegradable ... certainly have the merit of decay in nature, but as in the green bin at the landfill, this virtue becomes a vice ... In the recycling bin, in fact, these bags "contaminate" recycled plastics in affecting product quality remodeled. And in the landfill, compacted, without oxygen, they break down slowly, very slowly, so that greenhouse gas emissions escaping upwards and leachate, down. Only possible outcome for these bags: the municipal collection of organic matter, unfortunately not very widespread in Quebec. "
The real solution is the adoption of coherent, effective and environmentally active politicians who have a vision that must guide us to face challenges come and not only deal with symptoms. The slogan of Jean Charest's Liberals in their first election victory in 2003 was: "we are ready! . Reducing consumption of plastic bags showed that consumer-citizens were ready. For cons, the government itself is still not ready and falling behind.