Pressure to ban plastic bags in stores keeps on building worldwide

Just recently Whole Foods Market, the organic food store chain, has joined the growing number of retailers who are currently banning plastic bags in store, opting instead for reusable green bags or paper bags. The US supermarket chain approached its customers nationwide with several ‘plastic bag bans’ trial runs, which all produced positive results, ensuring their customers’ support for the eco-friendly initiative.
This is what Michael Besancon, a regional president of Whole Foods and the leader of an environmental task force has to say in favour of alternatives to plastic bags:
“The fact of plastic bags is they are not something that has been around forever,” “It was paper for many, many years. It’s not really a hardship.”

via [ New York Times ]

Similarly, in Australia environmental pressure groups seek for a total ban of plastic bags be enforced, after a voluntary scheme among large retailers to reduce their use failed to meet targets.
Following the example of the Irish government, the state of Victoria will impose a 10 cent levy per bag at the checkout from January 2009.

via [ The Age ]

Beach Gets Protected As Heritage Site

It’s Sydney’s most famous beach and it’s one of the cities’ iconic sites, just as the Opera House or the Harbour Bridge. The news of the beach’s inclusion in the National Heritage Listing provides protection with criminal sanctions for any damage caused to the site.

Bondi Beach is the quintessential Australian beach in the imaginary of many. As Peter Garrett, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts puts it: “you can’t get more Aussie than Bondi,”

SHM: You can’t get more Aussie than Bondi

Green Roof Blends Landscape And Structure

Singapore rightfully prides itself with the new ‘green-friendly’ facility housing the School of Art, Design and Media at Nanyang Technological University. Designed by CPG, the five story building features a grassy green rooftop.

This remarkable piece of architecture has been described as ‘a vegetated form that blends landscape and structure, nature and high-tech and symbolizes the creativity it houses’.

The curving green roof distinguishes the building from other structures on campus but the line between landscape and building is blurred. The roofs serve as informal gathering spaces challenging linear ideas and stirring perception. The roofs create open space, insulate the building, cool the surrounding air and harvest rainwater for landscaping irrigation. Planted grasses mix with native greenery to colonize the building and bond it to the setting.

[via Designflute]