Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
as compostable, biodegradable, or photodegradable. As of
October 1, 2012, the importation, manufacture, or sale of plastic
bags and disposable foam products was banned in Haiti. Most
such products are currently imported from the Dominican
Republic. It is unknown how well this law will be enforced.
Unless there are readily available alternatives and consistent
enforcement of the ban, it will be ineffective and may well end
up hurting some of the people most directly affected by the
litter problem when sewer systems back up.
Market-based solutions, such as asking people to pay for
plastic bags at checkout, have been effective in Washington, DC
and in Ireland. Shoppers in China, Mexico, India, and countries
throughout Africa and Europe shop without single-use bags.
They bring their own bags to the market. This idea is catching
on in the United States, and there are many efforts encouraging
shoppers to bring their own bags. Eighth-grade student Emily
Miner in Pacific Palisades, California created and sold reus-
able shopping bags with an historical Pacific Palisades photo.
Dan Jacobson, legislative director of Environment California,
has included her bag in his collection of creative alternatives
to plastic bags. He travels throughout California showing this
kind of grassroots effort to reduce single-use bags.
In Louisiana, where marshes are being lost at an alarming
rate, recycled plastic will be used to protect restored marshes
in Lake Pontchartrain. Seventeen floating islands five feet
wide by twenty feet long will be built and placed in front of
a man-made marsh. The floating islands, which will be about
18 inches thick, are made from layers of what looks like Brillo
pads but are actually recycled plastic bottles. The floating
islands are stocked with native plants and microbes and then
anchored on the bottom.
An island on the Great Barrier Reef has stopped sell-
ing water in plastic bottles to reduce litter. Several other
market-based approaches have been explored, such as deposit
schemes to encourage the return and multiuse of plastic bottles
and taxation on single-use plastics that do not fit into deposit
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