Hill-walking visitors to the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh could be in for a shock if they carry their lunch in a polythene bag. Politicians in the picturesque Himalayan state, a popular tourist destination, say polythene pollution is a major problem and, under a new law, anyone found using a polythene bag could face up to seven years behind bars or a hefty fine of up to 100,000 rupees (£1,000). Politicians in Bangladesh feel the same way about plastic bags and have banned them after it discovered that by blocking the country’s sewerage system, plastic bags had substantially increased the impact of flooding. In the seas around the islands of Hawaii the marine wildlife is threatened by the polythene and plastic, among other types of rubbish, floating in from the countries on the Pacific Rim, but Hawaii itself is powerless to stop the inflow and can only maintain a continual cleanup programme.

Shoppers’ kites, witches’ knickers, tundra ghosts... the different names for the scourge in different parts of the world reflect the impact made by the plastic bags which proliferate like garden weeds throughout the planet. NASA even found one floating in space! The bags blow into trees and waterways, choke animals and birds and take up increasingly large amounts of space in landfills.

The major problem caused by the plastic bags, in addition to the unsightliness, is that, as with all forms of plastic, they do not biodegrade. They photo-degrade, breaking down into smaller and smaller toxic bits contaminating soil, waterways, oceans and entering the food chain when ingested by animals. In the marine environment plastic bag litter is lethal, killing at least 100,000 birds, whales, seals and turtles every year. After an animal is killed by plastic bags, its body decomposes and the plastic is released back into the environment where it can kill again.

The world uses over 1.2 trillion plastic bags a year worldwide, which averages some 300 bags for each adult on the planet (with the supposedly environmentally-aware Californians averaging 500 each per year). They are used at a rate of one million every minute of the day, with each bag being used for approximately just 12 minutes before disposal; the plastic bag then lasts in the environment for decades, and by some estimates, centuries. Meanwhile, 47% of wind-borne litter escaping from landfills is plastic, much of it plastic bags. Consumers in Britain use more than 10 billion bags a year, with the average family using 800 bags a year; the quantity of plastic bags sent by London alone for disposal in to landfill every year exceeds four billion.

The government of Gibraltar has not released figures, but using UK figures as a basis for an estimate for Gibraltar, then if some 8,000 households use just 300 bags in each household a year, more than two million bags are being used in Gibraltar, and probably many, many more if the flow-through of millions of visitors every year is taken into account.

Authorities in countries worldwide are applying different plans to reduce the massively high levels of use of plastic bags, some with voluntary targets, some introducing new laws. According to Waste Watch, a leading environmental organisation working to change the way people use the world’s natural resources, “evidence from around the world shows that introducing a levy on disposable bags can reduce their usage by up to 90%.” Australia has announced plans to phase out single-use plastic shopping bags by the end of the year, San Francisco has become the first American city to ban plastic bags from large supermarkets and chemists’ shops following the example set by Ireland, which after introducing in 2002 a “plastax” of about 30 cents on each bag has seen a 90% reduction in use.

In UK Gordon Brown has announced the intention to use the Climate Change Bill to introduce a green levy on the 13 billion bags handed out each year in UK, declaring a target to “eliminate single-use plastic bags”, while saying “the damage that single-use plastic bags inflict on the environment is such that strong action must be taken and if government compulsion is needed to make a change, we will take the necessary steps.” In the meantime, the town of Modbury in Devon has become a plastic bag-free zone after traders pledged not to sell or give away a plastic bag during a successful six month’s trial period. They are now selling biodegradable jute or corn starch bags instead.

But, worldwide, the big food and clothing stores, the main providers of plastic bags, are resist change, partly because biodegradable bags are more expensive to produce — some four to seven pence per bag, compared with one to two pence for a conventional bag. At Marks & Spencer food bags are made of 20% recycled plastic, while clothes bags are 100% recycled. It sells reusable bags for life for 10p, and cash register staff are instructed to ask first whether a customer wants disposable bags. It is clear that charging for bags can have a dramatic effect, as Marks & Spencer saw when it tested a scheme recently which resulted in a reduction of more than 70% in the number of bags it issued when customers were asked to pay.

The shopper has always had many alternatives to the plastic bag; older generations in Gibraltar may still have at home the bags they used in earlier years, the string bag, for example, or the cloth bag or even the wicker basket. Modern alternatives to the single-use plastic bag now include the silk or cotton bag made from recycled saris, but unfortunately the plastic bag still remains popular for its possibilities for secondary use, such as taking the rubbish out, or for use as a poop-scoop. There would be no need though, say some commentators, to return to the string bag or the shopping basket if communities make a major switch to biodegradable, compostable plastic made from corn starch as opposed to the current plastic kind made from oil products.

It is not yet clear in Gibraltar whether the government will regulate, or whether the retailers and the public, working together, will look for ways to reduce, and one day eliminate entirely, the single-use plastic bag but it seems the question of the how to reduce the use of the plastic bag is currently being addressed by the Department of the Environment. In its recently-issued Mission Statement in a report on environmental policy in Gibraltar the DoE states, “The Government of Gibraltar believes that it has a vital role in environmental leadership. Implementing effective management systems that minimize environmental impacts should consequently be incorporated into existing infrastructure arrangements so as to conform with Government’s vision as a leader in Green Business.” The report goes on to give Waste Minimisation tips, one of which is, simply, to ”...use less plastic bags”.

Action is being taken by authorities worldwide to find a way to reduce the use of plastic and plastic bags in their communities but pending further DoE announcements, it seems that in Gibraltar it will be up to local environment action groups, such as Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and GONHS, and a recently-formed organisation called No To Plastic Bags (No2PB), to work together to accustom the minds of consumers in Gibraltar to the environmentallyfriendly policy of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.