The municipal bye-law

The municipal bye-law that has been approved and is about to be signed by Mayor Alcides Goitía will come into effect early in 2012. It bans the sale and use of plastic bags with a capacity of under 30 kg; larger bags will still be allowed, for collecting garbage. Penalties will be exacted for infringements, especially against those who throw plastic bags away in public places, or burn them.

"This decision arises from concern for the health and education of our people, the beauty of our landscape and the fostering of tourism, for our peninsula is blessed with beautiful beaches and scenery, fine food, and a free zone," Kile Baldayo, the president of the Carirubana local council, told IPS.

"The planet is choking on plastic bags. Everywhere in Venezuela is cluttered with them, from virtually every metre of coastline all the way to the tops of the 'tepuyes' (ancient flat-topped mountains in the southeastern province of Guayana), as well as our streets, fences and garbage dumps," Baldayo said. "It's time we did something to stop the degradation of the environment."

Pollution from plastic waste is not merely a matter of an aesthetic blight on the landscape, Alejandro Alvarez of the ARA network of environmental organisations told IPS. "When garbage is incinerated in the open air, large quantities of dioxins and furans are released, which is worrying even though we don't know the exact quantities emitted," he said.

Dioxins and furans are carcinogens that are produced when plastics are burned, and accumulate in oily solvents, soils, sediments, the food chain and human body tissues.

Reasoned arguments justifying the ordinance were presented to the city council of Carirubana by Goitia and Baldayo, who quoted statistics from the environmental watchdog Greenpeace indicating over six million tonnes of garbage, largely plastic waste, are dumped into the oceans every year.