Sir, - In Herbert Park the cherry blossom is out and the baby ducklings are learning how to fend for themselves on the pond. All would be idyllic, were it not for the ubiquitous plastic bags flapping in the trees and floating amid the duck-weed.
I was heartened to read of the demonstration outside the Dail against the waste and visual pollution that arises from our consumption of 9.6 million plastic bags every week (The Irish Times, April 8th). Like the demonstrators, I believed Fianna Fail when it said it was going to do something to tax plastic bags in its pre-election plamas period. Promises are cheap.
Plastic bags are of course an ideal medium for stores to advertise their goods, and this makes me wonder if taxing them is the best approach. I believe that many stores would still choose to distribute plastic bags with their customary abandon, rather than lose the valuable exposure. Might a possible solution be to make free distribution of bags illegal, and to make the consumer pay for them - as it is ultimately the consumer who pollutes?
Sadly, experience shows that we cannot as yet rely on consumers to say no to plastic bags when offered them. Education about the environment is much needed in this country. In the UK, the government recently took the commendable step of placing ads in the national newspapers to encourage people to use their cars as little as possible. Why can't our Government run some ads explaining the environmental sense it makes for people to bring their own bags with them when shopping? Many people may simply never have realised the issues involved.
Such a step would cost the Government relatively little and would do something to reduce the number of discarded plastic bags on our streets, beaches and green spaces. - Yours, etc.,
Dervila Cooke
Burlington Gardens, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4.