Perhaps the most ubiquitous consumer item in the world, plastic shopping bags are being banned or restricted in many different countries. In North America, San Francisco is the only major city to ban them, with Leaf Rapids, Man., set to follow suit. (Ben Margot/Associated Press)

Along the mountain trails of Nepal, village officials keep a close eye on passing porters and trekking groups, looking for something that local people find offensive and have banned from their communities — plastic shopping bags.

Like narcotic drugs and pornography, polyethylene film bags are illegal in many Nepali towns and villages.

Canada and the United States lag behind the rest of the world in efforts to reduce the use of plastic shopping bags.

Only two small communities in this country — Rossland, B.C., and Leaf Rapids, Man. — are seriously moving to outlaw bags. San Francisco is the only major city in North America to do so.

But across Asia, Africa and Europe, governments and communities are banning polyethylene bags, taxing them or strongly discouraging shoppers and supermarkets from putting purchases in plastic. A number of Indian states have outlawed plastic bags, including the Himalayan region of Ladakh from the early 1990s.

"Polyethylene pollution is not just an ugly sight in the hills, it has seriously damaged the environment by choking the soil," says Himachal Pradesh state environment minister J.P. Negi.

A cow found dead in the streets of New Delhi recently had some 35,000 plastic bags in its digestive system, according to Indian media reports. Cows are viewed as sacred animals by most Hindus.

Bags to blame for floods

In Mumbai, the country's financial capital, officials say storm drains stuffed with discarded shopping bags were partially to blame for disastrous floods in 2005 that killed more than 400 people. Such bags are now completely illegal in the teeming city of 18 million.

Flood-prone Bangladesh cited similar reasons for banning bags in 2002. In Taiwan, South Africa, Thailand, Papua New Guinea and Zanzibar, the main concern was unsightly — and ubiquitous — litter. Showing grim humour, South Africans have long referred to the thin white plastic bags that whirl in the gusts and stick to trees and lamp posts as "national flowers."

The Irish are proud of the natural beauty of their island, and welcome the millions of tourists who come to see it. But until a few years ago, no part of the country was without wafting scraps of plastic that shoppers had brought home from the supermarket and then thrown away.

"They're like the national flag," a street vendor in Dublin explained ruefully, "they flutter in the wind and they're everywhere."

That was before 2002, when Ireland imposed a tax on every plastic bag used in the country, reducing use by 90 per cent in the first year of the tax and raising the equivalent of $18 million for the country's recycling efforts.

China burns British bags

In Britain, individual cities and towns have brought in taxes and restrictions on bag use and the government in London has considered national standards and regulations. A recent report in the British newspaper the Independent says plastic waste from Britain is increasingly being dumped in poor parts of China, where it is burnt or buried and has a devastating effect on soil, the health of local people and water purity.

Environmentalists estimate that between 500 billion and a trillion plastic bags are used every year. Plastics manufacturers dispute the figures but don't keep global statistics.

The plastics industry opposes outright bans on polyethylene film shopping bags and says it's working with retailers and governments to encourage recycling and voluntary reductions in consumption.

Attempts by legislators in the United States to ban or restrict the use of plastic bags have been derailed several times in recent years by lobbying by plastics manufacturers who point out that their industry pumps nearly half a billion dollars into the national economy every year.

Besides, plastics company officials say, consumers have responsibilities too.

"Every piece of litter has a human face on it," Rob Krebs of the American Plastics Association, "If they [bags] are a harm to the environment in terms of visual blight, then people need to stop littering."

Voluntary curbs on bag use has been hugely successful in Australia, where about 90 per cent of major retailers charge customers for shopping bags and offer onsite recycling bins where shoppers can dump plastics after taking groceries to their cars.

In Canada, some retailers offer recycling bins and do charge for bags, but the practice is not widespread.

Legal challenge to Leaf Rapids

Canada's plastic industry could be getting ready to mount legal challenges against Leaf Rapids, Man., when its bag ban comes into effect.

Cathy Cirko of the Canadian Plastics Association says the municipality may not have the legal right to ban particular substances or materials that aren't prohibited by provincial or federal law. Besides, she told the Canadian Press, shoppers already recycle plastic bags to carry their lunches, or stoop and scoop behind their pets in public parks.

"We think consumers should be given choices, encouraged to re-use, recycle and not take a bag if they don't need one. But bags are efficient, economical, convenient and very useful." Cirko said.

Out at the edge of Leaf Rapids, and at other communities across North America, plastic shopping bags that weren't recycled stick to the fence around the landfill site.

This small Manitoba town could just be at the vanguard of a movement that is already washing over much of the rest of the world.