Government▼Watch
The Irish are supplying their own reusable bags to cart home purchases as a result of a new national tax on plastic shopping bags. The 15-centsper-bag tax, which took effect in March, has reduced the number of bags disbursed at stores by roughly 90%, and netted more than –C 3.5 million for a national environment fund since June, according to the country’s Department of the Environment and Local Government. If current trends continue, environment ministry officials estimate that the tax will generate more than –C 10 million during its first year, which will be used to fund various waste management projects and other environmental initiatives such as a new enforcement office.
The tax was introduced largely as an anti–litter measure in the hope of achieving a “significant reduction” in the number of plastic bags being used. Ireland’s Environment Minister Martin Cullen said in August that
up dotting Ireland’s countryside and coastlines, creating an eyesore as well as a hazard to wildlife habitats. A report on the Irish experience is now under review by the British government and could form the basis of a similar tax in that country, according to a spokesperson from the British Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs. Other countries that have expressed interest in the tax include Australia and Madeira, a group of Portuguese islands off the coast of Morocco, says Mary O’Keeffe, a spokesperson for the Irish environment ministry. In January, Bangladesh went so far as to ban the use of plastic bags in Dhaka, its capital, where the bags had clogged drainage canals, prolonging flooding during heavy rains. —KRIS CHRISTEN PHOTODISC
Bagging plastic
conservative estimates of plastic bag consumption before the introduction of the tax found that shoppers took home more than 1.2 billion bags annually, roughly equal to 325 bags per person. Many of these bags wound
Battle erupts over California perchlorate standard California officials will regulate perchlorate in drinking water by January 2004, making it the first state in the nation to require that drinking water conform to an enforceable standard. Gov. Gray Davis (D) signed a law on September 15 that moved forward the state’s effort to set a health goal for perchlorate by the end of this year. However, a September 23 court ruling will probably delay the process by requiring a second round of peer review for the state’s draft health goal, set at 6 parts per billion (ppb). A Los Angeles County judge agreed that the California EPA (Cal/EPA) violated state law when it denied a request for a public peer review of the draft regulation. Kerr McGee, a former perchlorate manufacturer, and Lockheed Martin, whose aerospace plants in southern California are linked with perchlorate contamination, requested the review. However, Cal/EPA can keep working on the draft standard. Legal challenges to such draft proposals are very rare, according to Cal/EPA spokesperson Allan Hirsch. The draft standard of 6 ppb in drinking water, announced in March, was chosen at a level deemed safe for public health, based on perchlorate’s ability to stop iodine from getting to the
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thyroid gland. However, a recent Environmental Health Perspectives research paper suggests that the dose needed to cause an effect may be more than 60 times higher than the California draft goal (p. 407A). U.S. EPA officials are still working to produce a final toxicological review and estimate that it will take more than five years to set a national standard. Perchlorate, a component of solid rocket fuel, has been found in water in 20 states according to EPA. The contaminant has received the most attention in California, where its presence has forced the shutdown of wells in several counties. Perchlorate is also found in the Colorado River, a major water supply for southwestern states. California’s draft health goal is somewhat higher than EPA’s most recent draft recommendation of 1 ppb, which was proposed in January 2002 (Environ. Sci. Technol. 2002, 36, 125A). Once finalized, the public health goal will pass to the state’s health department. The health department will set a legally enforceable maximum contamination level, which emphasizes public health but also must account for technical and economic feasibility. —REBECCA RENNER
© 2002 American Chemical Society
