An idle threat? Recycling bags
An idle threat? Recycling bagsFlash 90

The 'Bag Law' entered into effect on Sunday, regulating Israeli grocery shoppers at checkout counters around the country. Under the law shoppers at supermarkets and grocery stores have to pay a 10 agorot tax (between 2-3 cents) for each plastic bag they wish to use when checking out of the stores. It is hoped that the law will protect the environment by cutting down on the number of non-biodegradable plastic bags in use.

Dr. Gabi Avital, the former Chief Scientist of the Education Ministry, disagrees with that assessment. He told Arutz Sheva that the law is the result of 40 years of pressure and intimidation from environmental groups.

"The image of the dirty bag is meant to promote things. It isn't [actually] important." Dr. Avital said. "In truth, it represents less than one percent of all the garbage which will not be recycled. They talk about the decades in which the bags are not biodegradable, [but] not one can name the real [amount of time the bags last]. But assuming that it is correct it is the job of the environmentalists to find a solution for the bags and for other things of that nature."

"Humanity has progressed and there is now technology that didn't exist in the past. Why impose on me and ask me to buy bags through this law? So that I will use less of them? According to this logic, they should be charging a shekel and a half (about 40 cents). Then I'd think twice [about using plastic bags]." Dr. Avital added.

He compared the campaign against plastic grocery bags to other environmental campaigns. "In [19]93 they said that bromide factories caused 5% of the hole in the ozone layer. It is all about intimidation, not about scientific methodology. It is all lies and deceit. I have written quite a lot about it. It is one of the biggest canards in scientific history, if not the biggest."

He said that he does not accept the explanation that the bag law is to protect the environment, because the authorities already collect the plastic bags from the trash to protect the environment. He added that the issue "of their biodegradability is a fiction. Stones are also not biodegradable and we live well with them."

He said that the solution to any potential environmental problem from the use of plastic bags is to use humanity's technological acumen to find an alternative to the plastic bags, not to reach into the pockets of the average consumer.