“Bags are a drag. For us, for the city, for the planet and for the future.” This is the slogan for the national campaign launched in Sao Paulo by Carlos Minc, Minister of Environment, on Tuesday (June 23), with the support of Wal-Mart, a supermarket chain. This initiative seeks to raise people’s awareness to say no to plastic bags, whenever possible, and to adopt alternative ways of transporting their groceries and packing their waste.
“Today is a happy day and may everybody follow this good example. Let’s reduce the use of plastic bags, reuse them and say no to them whenever possible so that soon, just as it happened with the aluminum cans, the plastic industry will find itself closing the entire circuit, either by generating energy, another plastic or construction materials,” pointed out Minc, during the launch.

To reach the population, two 30-second videos were produced for the campaign and presented during the launch. One of them shows a relaxed and humorous speech by the campaign spokesperson, Jose Lima, founder of the AfroReggae group, in which he encourages citizens to refuse, reduce and reuse plastic bags. Print materials, such as ads, brochures, posters and stickers where also produced to promote the campaign. In addition, the campaign has a blog that provides information and tips on conscious consumption, as well as on alternative ways to replace plastic bags in our daily activities.

Every year, Brazil consumes 12 billion plastic bags and each Brazilian uses approximately 66 bags per month. The data provided by the Brazilian Association of Supermarkets (Abras) and other data by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) shows that the negative effects of these “harmless” plastic bags are already reaching distant locations, considered true tourist and ecologic paradises. Also, 500 billion bags are out there, clogging rivers, lakes and sewers, polluting the ocean, killing fish, turtles and other animals.

Crass mistakes? They forgot to post the videos on YouTube and the blog is not working properly. It seems that now we have some heavy-weigh allies in our fight against plastic bags.

Via the Ministry of Environment website; tip by Lu Monte
Photo: Plastic Bags waiting for Recycling, by evelinshere, at Flickr under CC