Scientists and greens say bag bans “make people feel good” but “achieve nothing”.
10 March 2008 - Scientists and Environmentalists told a UK-based daily newspaper that there is no research proving that plastic bags kill large numbers of marine creatures each year.
They told The Times that supposed scientific figures bandied about to substantiate claims that bags do kill large numbers of sea animals and birds have been misquoted from a 1987 report.
They pointed to a Canadian study carried out in Newfoundland between 1981 and 1984. This report found that more than 100,000 marine animals and a million birds were killed by fishing nets over the four year period. But the report, which appeared in the Marine Pollution Bulletin, didn’t mention plastic bags.
The Times newspaper added that in 2002, the Australian government carried out a report into the effects of plastic bags and the researchers misquoted the Newfoundland study and wrongly attributed the deaths to plastic bags rather than nets.
By the time the report was amended in 2006 the misquoted figure was entrenched in environmental campaign literature as “fact”.
The Times ran the piece did so under the headline, “series of blunders turned the plastic bag into global villain”.
However, a marine biologist was quoted highlighting the issue of “plastic nurdles” – small plastic particles. He said these, “form a much greater threat”.
