Millions of rands collected by the government from levies on plastic bags are "missing" and facilities to recycle the plastic waste have yet to get off the ground.

To date, only R90-million out of an estimated R360m in levies collected from the plastic manufacturing sector since 2004 can be accounted for by the National Treasury.

And the Section 21 company Buyisa-e-Bag, set up by the government to build buy-back centres to recycle the plastic, has been described by the industry as "a dismal failure".

'The slow progress is due to a variety of reasons'
What started out as a joke in Parliament has turned into a cash cow for the authorities.

According to a media report, in August 1999, when former environment minister Valli Moosa told MPs he might ban plastic bags, "our national flower", it was something he said off the top of his head - as he later acknowledged.

Once the remark made it into the press Moosa was soon made aware of how much the public supported the idea.

The proposed ban was later transformed into a ban on thin plastic bags and, to deter members of the public from discarding their plastic bags, anything up to 35c or more is now charged for carrier bags at supermarket tills, of which 3c - increased to 4c last month - was supposedly set aside for recycling and environmental protection projects.

But since millions still throw their bags in the bin - or use them as bin liners - all that has happened is that bags in landfill sites are thicker and take longer to degrade.

Article Continues: IOL