Take a trip through our townships and look at our roadsides.

We accuse industry for the destruction of the forests, the petroleum companies for poisoning our planet . . . the atomic energy, the dioxins, the agrochemicals.

Unfortunately, we tend to forget that consumer consumption supports the production, because we buy.

We have, therefore, the power to close factories by not consuming their products, but I don’t know if we have the strength to change our way of life – what irony – for the better.

It is imperative in our times to abolish plastic whose use is not imperative.

In Greece alone we discard eight million plastic bags daily, while world-wide the number reaches 16 billion.

If we multiply by 365 days, we can understand why discarded plastic bags are responsible for nine percent of sea contamination, deaths of one million birds yearly, as well as other animal life, due to the fact that after plastic decomposes it passes on to the food chain where man is the main consumer.

Bon apetit!  

For example, plastic waste in the oceans kills around 100,000 whales, dolphins, seals, turtles and other animals each year. In one instance a whale was washed up dead with 23 plastic bags in its stomach.

A plastic bag is made in two seconds, used for 12 minutes and the plastic begins to decompose after three years. Its total decomposition takes from 400 to1000 years, which means that as of now, from the time of their invention, no plastic bag has totally decomposed.

Discarded bags pile up along the roadside in many countries, some worse than others.

Some countries have already taken measures to alleviate this problem.

In Bombay, authorities banned the use of plastic bags in 2000, and retailers found breaching the ban were hit with a one month suspension of trading.

The French and Italian governments will impose a full ban by 2010 and other countries are charging for the bags.

China closed its biggest plastic bag manufacturer amid worries of pollution and Bangladesh imposed a ban in the capital Dhaka in 2002 after plastic bags were associated with the clogging up of sewers and associated flooding.

In the United States, stores have been offering their customers a choice – paper or plastic? – for many years, but many cities, led by San Francisco, have now totally banned plastic. 

At the very least, it’s wrong to assume that plastic bags are gifts from the stores. Ireland levies a 15-cent tax on plastic bags and uses the money to fund other environmental programs (a reported 13 million euros since 2002).

On the positive side, efforts are being made from certain countries to ban the plastic bag, like “the bag of life” in England, the cloth bag in Germany and a recent discovery –  the biodegradable bag  made from potato starch and corn by-products – which decompose fast and feed the ecosystem with nutrient substances.

Every time we’re occupied with environmental sensitivities, we feel the need to attack – we’re being kind - the unsightly behavior of people in our island who throw plastic bags full with garbage out their car windows.

How smart that is!

One type of business in our three townships which is already doing its part in fighting the plastic bag battle is the pharmacy.

“We’ve been giving our customers reusable bags for several years now,” said Rena Hatzithaki, who, along with her husband, Babis, runs the Kokkini Hani Pharmacy. “They are made with a biodegradable plastic which can be broken down by other living organisms, and can be used many times which can really help the environment.”