Not too long ago, the Citizens’ Journalism Newsroom at Grocott’s Mail set its ‘learners’ a task around the issue of toxic waste disposal in our town.
Not too long ago, the Citizens’ Journalism Newsroom at Grocott’s Mail set its ‘learners’ a task around the issue of toxic waste disposal in our town.
The participants, most of whom are educated Grahamstown residents with day jobs, came up with some incredibly compelling stuff, not least the revelation that the incinerator at Settler’s Hospital was decommissioned and/ or idle for several months, and that most of the toxic waste disposal happens at Grahamstown’s dump site – with serious consequences for people who pick through the rubbish, as well as for the environment.
The environment, and its pollution, is one of the most high profile topics in the world’s policy debates today – never mind last year’s calamitous Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.
The debates are increasingly high-pitched and decisions increasingly felt even here in Grahamstown
one way or the other.
Unless you’ve hiding under a rock, you’ve probably been privy to the back-and-forth over the Grahamstown wind farm project.
The French company InnoWind (Pty) has handed a firm proposal to Makana Municipality to set up 12 wind
turbines somewhere along the Highlands Road in the Waainek area near Mariya uMama weThemba
Monastery.
According to the Gallic estimates, each turbine will produce two to three MW of electricity. One camp punts the need for locally produced ‘green’ energy that will create jobs, expand the tax base and do something for the environment; while the other is convinced the turbines are not as cheap as claimed in a country that has so much coal, and that they will destroy the aesthetics of the area.
To be fair to both, there is nothing bad about Grahamstown-generated electricity; and a wind farm is not the world’s prettiest sight, which might explain why the Brits, Chinese and Americans sink them in deserts or in the sea, far away from most people.
Forget all that for now however, and examine today’s environmental rhetoric against the simplest issue of the plastic shopping bag. Apparently, the ANC and South Africa have some sensible policy around sustainable environmental use.
Towards this goal they have decreed that plastic bags sold at supermarkets should not be as cheap as they used to be but cost 25c-50c each.
The question is whether you’ve ever decided not to get a plastic bag because it added an extra 50 cents to your shopping. It happens sometimes; but rarely, and only when you’re holding a newspaper, or a bottle of expensive wine.
Not when you’ve just bought junk food of chicken breasts for a Saturday braai. Then, you really want to sneak out of Pick n Pay without calling attention to your purchases. You will beg for that plastic bag.
The 50 cents will not stop you from spending. The solution is obvious: there should be a tax that sells plastic shopping bags at R10 each! Would you still want to buy one, willy-nilly? Didn’t think so.
Incidentally, most of the larger supermarkets also have branded bags made of so-called less toxic material (cloth for example) for between R5 and R10.
If a plastic bag costs R10, you will buy one and re-use it repeatedly, no matter how much you earn, or you get the more eco-friendly bag that is also re-usable.
If we can answer the 50 cent question of why the plastic bag is the cheapest item on any shopping list, we can tackle wind farms and toxic.
