With so much talk of climate change and carbon dioxide emissions nowadays, most people are familiar with a carbon footprint. But what about a plastic footprint?  

An initiative in Hong Kong called The Plastic Disclosure Project plans to send out questionnaires to companies and institutions around the world asking them to assess, monitor and report their use of plastic. The aim is to get them to cut their plastic consumption as well as try to change the awareness and behavior of big users of plastic.  

Environmentalists have long complained that plastic pollution has become a major threat to the world’s water bodies and the environment. If the plastic footprint becomes as widespread as its carbon counterpart,  the project may just lead to a real clean up.

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, right? In Taiwan, the answer is yes: a company there called Miniwiz Sustainable Energy Development Ltd has created a boat out of trash. It’s called the Polli-boat, and it’s made up of everything from plastic bottles to old advertising banners. The flotation system uses interlocking plastic bricks that lock together with enough force to hold up under the pressure of sailing. It even has solar panels that help power the boat when there’s no wind!

“Fifty years ago, the single-use plastic bag was almost unheard of. Now we use them for a few minutes and they pollute our environment for decades,” says Janez Potocnik, Environment Commissioner of the the European Union. Each European uses 500 of these bags each year, most of them are used just once.  In 2008 alone a total of 3.4 million tonnes of plastic bags were produced in Europe, that makes the same weight as two million cars.

Starting this week (18. May) the European Commission is seeking a solution. The approach is planed to be made with the help of European people and the bags manufacturers. The Commission calls everyone to a online-poll. Finally a tax or a ban on plastic bags is considered. The Commission called for suggestions on how to deal with the billions of bags used in the European Union each year. The public consultation will close at the end of August.