OXO-BIODEGRADABLE PLASTICS ASSOCIATION …

1 1 OXO-BIODEGRADABLE PLASTICS ASSOCIATION . Registered office The Old Exchange 12 Compton Road, London SW19 7QD, England PLASTIC BAG BANS and TAXES Many legislators are under pressure to ban plastic bags but this is a really bad For an excellent video see More and more people are realising that governments and supermarkets are exploiting our environmental consciousness to make us pay more for no good reason. Some supermarkets are charging for plastic carrier bags and saying that they are giving the profit to charity.

2 This sounds laudable, but they are transferring the cost of the bags from themselves to their environmentally-conscious customers, and they are choosing the charity. Even if a tax is imposed there will still be very large numbers of plastic bags in circulation, and most governments have no policy for those which cannot realistically be collected, unless the tax is higher on conventional plastic than on OXO-BIODEGRADABLE plastic so as to encourage a switch to the more environmentally beneficial option.

3 Plastic carrier bags are in fact a wonder of modern technology. They can be made very thin, with minimal raw material, but are still strong enough to carry a full load of heavy shopping. No other shopping container can carry 2,500 times its own weight and stay strong when wet. A typical plastic carrier bag uses 70% less plastic today than 20 years ago. Plastic bags will protect our food and other goods from damage and contamination. They are hygienic and can be made in an almost unlimited number of colors and designs.

4 Despite all these attributes they are inexpensive, and are by far the most cost-effective and functional solution available. The bags can also be re-used many times over for shopping, and are compact enough to be put in a pocket or handbag. They are also put to many other uses in the home, and for other uses such as clearing dog-waste from the streets, and most of them will eventually serve as a bin-liner to safely collect and dispose of household waste. They are made from a by-product of oil-refining which used to be wasted.

5 The oil is extracted to make fuels, and the same amount would be extracted even if plastic did not exist. The only problem with plastic bags is that they could lie or float around for decades if they get into the open environment, but this problem has been solved by OXO-BIODEGRADABLE technology. This is a low-cost technology which causes the plastic to degrade at the end of its pre-set useful life in the presence of oxygen, into a biodegradable material which is invisible and not toxic.

6 It does NOT just cause the plastic to fragment. The governments of the following countries carefully considered the effectiveness and safety of OXO-BIODEGRADABLE technology before passing legislation which makes it mandatory to use the technology :- Pakistan, United Arab Emirates, Mauritius, Yemen, 1 OXO-BIODEGRADABLE PLASTICS ASSOCIATION An Incorporated not-for-profit ASSOCIATION limited by Guarantee. 2 OXO-BIODEGRADABLE PLASTICS ASSOCIATION .

7 Registered office The Old Exchange 12 Compton Road, London SW19 7QD, England Iran, Serbia, Kosovo, Albania, and Brazil (part). These have a combined population of 195 million, and other countries will be following their example. PLASTICS factories and brand-owners will not be able to export to those countries unless their products contain oxo-bio technology. Q. What is OXO-BIODEGRADABLE plastic? A. It is normal oil-based plastic, with a special ingredient which causes the plastic to convert at the end of its useful life in the presence of oxygen into a non-toxic biodegradable material, which is bio-assimilated into the environment in the same way as a leaf.

8 It does NOT just cause fragmentation. It is made with the same machines as normal plastic. The special ingredient represents less than 1% of the total and there is little or no extra cost. Q. Is it a good idea to ban plastic carrier-bags? A. No. Scientists and environmentalists have attacked a global campaign to ban plastic bags which they say is based on flawed science and exaggerated The Times of London wrote as follows in an editorial on 8th March 2008: Analysis without facts is guesswork.

9 Sloppy analysis of bad science is worse. Poor interpretation of good science wastes time and impedes the fight against obnoxious behaviour. There is no place for bad science, or weak analysis, in the search for credible answers to difficult Many of those who have demonized plastic bags have enlisted scientific study to their cause. By exaggerating a grain of truth into a larger falsehood they spread misinformation, and abuse the trust of their unwitting audiences.

10 Dick Taverne, chairman of Sense about Science said3 This is one of many examples where you get bad science leading to bad decisions which are counter-productive. Attacking plastic bags makes people feel good but it doesn t achieve anything. On 18th February 20114 the UK Environment Agency published a Life-Cycle Assessment which highlighted that HDPE bags are, for each use, almost 200 times less damaging to the climate than cotton hold-alls5 favoured by environmentalists, and have less than one third of the C0 emissions than paper bags.