Nickie Muir: Nothing plastic about personal choice

According to one study by Klick and Wright, grubby reuse of plastic bags caused gastro issues in San Francisco, says Nickie Muir.

"It's best not to just make things up." I found this useful advice on the Act party website. It may not be best, but it certainly can be fun. And convenient. The issue of putting a levy on plastic bag use has seen an upsurge in the use of random studies and hair-raising warnings from Act that death and mayhem will follow should we all start to recycle our plastic bags.

It's all about logic and liberalism with Dave. I love wonky logic - it's so creative, yet compelling.

"The question for the advocates of banning bags is this: is it worth causing an extra 20 avoidable deaths per year?" he asks.

According to one study by Klick and Wright, grubby reuse of plastic bags caused gastro issues in San Francisco. Dr Aragon, a public health expert, explained why this study was next to useless in terms of linking plastic bag recycling with, er, dying.

Not that Mr Seymour cares. Cost-benefit analysis never seems to include such things as blocked sewers and species loss either but never let logic get in the way of a good argument.

Like Seymour, I value my freedom and the rights of individuals to make their own choices. It's funny though, when I'm on my freedom buzz I'm not impressed with making any sacrifices for the greater good. I'm also not interested in anything that vaguely impinges on my liberty. I like to swim freely in the ocean waves, free of that urban jelly-fish, the plastic bag. It's just that I don't want any of my other freedoms curbed in order to do so.

When Act says "You cannot defend the anti-plastic bag position by saying that people should clean their re-usable bags. We have to deal with real world behaviour in public policy," they are absolutely right.

My real world behaviour means I take my trendy kete to the local veggie market and gloat as I have a moment of eco-bliss by putting free-range eggs in my flaxen backpack.

I then go home and cook dinner only to remember that I've forgotten wine and baguettes, scoot to the shops sans kete.

I come home dripping in plastic bags for three items hoping that none of my eco-buddies will be driving past as I commit my crime against nature. I wave to the three Greenpeace activists who clock me as they drive to something activist-y knowing I will now never be accepted into the inner sanctum of the eco-elite.

At home, I now have to hide the plastic bag full of plastic bags and the cat, both signs of my general unfriendliness towards the environment.

My sins compounded, as one delightful friend puts it, by my unthinking ecologically sinful act of breeding. As a non-breeder her footprint is feather-lite, she's an ecological Tinkerbell and so she reserves the right to swaddle every apple in plastic bags and to drive her fuel guzzling jet-ski into the harbour to harpoon herself some whale for dinner.

It's all about personal freedom and balance which means she's a perfect candidate for the Act party - home of the free and seriously unbalanced.