Waleed Did His First Big Rant Of 2017 & He’s Not Happy About Plastic Bags

Plastic bags really fucking suck. I don’t even mean in terms of their environmental impact, they are just terrible bags. They break easily, they cut into your hands if you’ve got heavy stuff in them – whoever decided ages ago that their limited usefulness was enough to warrant the fact that they almost exclusively end up killing a turtle was an idiot, and I don’t even care if he or she is still alive to read this.
On top of that, environmentally, they are fucked as.
You may have noticed a distinct absence of Waleed Aly‘s trademark ‘Waleed Aly Nails X‘ rants lately, but he’s back in absolutely stellar form (with help from ‘The Project‘s managing editor Tom Whitty), this time to implore people to get their states to finally put an end to our shitty dependence on plastic bags.
As Waleed points out, the value we get from them is shockingly minuscule compared to the effect they have on our environment:
“On average, a plastic bag is used for just 12 minutes. 12 minutes carrying your groceries to the car, and from the car to your pantry. After that, it’s tossed away and it takes 1000 years to break down. Your great great great great great great great great great great great great grandchildren will share a planet with the plastic bag that you just used to bring home tonight’s dinner.”
What’s worse than imagining how long they will hang around for is realising just how many we are using:
“It’s estimated Australians use between 4 and 6 billion plastic bags annually. We use more than 10 million plastic bags, every day. And just since I’ve been speaking, Australians have dumped 7,150 plastic bags into landfill.”
While some states have already moved to ban them, others aren’t doing shit:
“What you mightn’t realise is that some states and territories in Australia have lead the way and banned plastic bags. I’m admiring you South Australia, Tasmania, Northern Territory and the ACT, and Queensland will ban them from July next year. But the other states, for decades, have only talked about it. And while they’ve talked, the rest of the world has been getting down to business.”
It seems like they’re not opposed to the idea though, with ‘The Project‘ canvassing feelings about a plastic bag ban from federal environment minister Josh Frydenberg, who said he’d be happy with the states all enacting a ban, and from the relevant state leaders, who said they’d be happy with either a federal ban or a council ban:
“The reason these three support a ban, but won’t pull the trigger in their own states is that they’re scared of a possible backlash, but maybe their fears are misplaced? 80 per cent of South Australians, who have already been living with a plastic bag ban for eight years, strongly support the ban. 70 per cent of Canberrans feel the same way. Same deal for 73 per cent of Territorians.”
In an effort to make them know that people are happy to not strangle turtles and birds every time they nick down to the shop for some chips, ‘The Project’ have launched a petition with Clean Up Australia to show support for banning the bags, which you can check out here.
Have a watch of the video below:
Source and photo: Channel 10.

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