Paper or Plastic? Take the Plastic

Doh.

Scientists are attacking the global campaign to ban plastic shopping bags, saying the activists' claim that the modern conveniences are responsible for the deaths of 100,000 animals and one million seabirds is based on a "typo" in a 2002 report and there is no scientific evidence showing the bags pose a direct threat to marine mammals.

Driving the campaign is the claim, found in a 2002 report commissioned by the Australian government, that 100,000 marine mammals and one million seabirds are killed by ingesting or becoming entangled in plastic bags. The figure was derived from a 1987 Canadian study in Newfoundland that found 100,000 marine mammals, including birds, killed by discarded fishing nets.

The authors of the 2002 study misquoted the Canadian study which made no mention of plastic bags.

....of course, you don't HAVE to take plastic. Kill a tree instead, with paper!