Plastic Outrage; Bright Red Salt Lake
LU STOUT: Coming to you live from Hong Kong, welcome back. This is "News Stream." People around the world are slowly learning how damaging single- use plastic like bags and straws can be for the environment. But a supermarket chain in Australia is reversing a plastic bag ban and letting customers use them for free.</s>LU STOUT (voice-over): The U.N. says eight million tons of plastic waste enters the world oceans every year and yet plastic is still being used widely, including by Coles supermarket in Australia which is giving out these plastic bags for free after reversing a ban. The chain says they phased out single-use plastic bags on July 1 but "some customers told us they needed more time to make the transition to reusable bags, so we are offering complementary reusable better bags to help them complete their shopping." Better bags refers to more durable plastic bags intended to be used more than just once. Some people are glad, many others are not.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): Happy they're giving them away?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): Why is that?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Save money.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You got to (ph) say something, you should do it, then people get used to it, and then there is no problem.</s>LU STOUT (voice-over): But there is a problem. Plastic. A lot of which comes from food and drink packaging, isn't just getting into our oceans in mass quantities, it's getting onto beaches, harming wildlife and heading right back into the food chain like in fish that we often buy from supermarkets. Greenpeace says Coles decision to indefinitely offer free plastic bags makes a mockery of stated commitments to reduce plastic waste and offering them for free means they are far more likely to be used once and thrown away.</s>ZOE DEANS, MOBILISATION CAMPAIGNER, GREENPEACE: Most states across Australia now actually have statewide plastic bag ban. So we know that it is something people want and something people really care about. People can go to Australia beach. They can see the impact of plastic in the environment and in our oceans and actually after plastic bag ban</s>LU STOUT (voice-over): The United Nations wants to eliminate single-use plastic by 2022, and says more than 60 countries are taking steps to ban or reduce plastics. Among them, Australia where other big supermarkets have successfully implemented a charge. But when Coles tried to charge for bags, some customers were furious,</s>LU STOUT: A simple but powerful protest against plastic there. Now, time to behold an incredible scene in Northern China, where this thousand-year- old salt lake has turned bright red. The reason? A surge in temperature has also led to a surge in algae and brine shrimp which are multiplying just in the warmer weather. And this is one of just three great sodium sulfate inland salt lakes in the world. The others are in the United States and Russia. And now finally to a royal heist in Sweden that sounds like something from a Hollywood movie. Now, police, they are looking for at least two men who are believed to have stolen a royal orb and the two crowns you see right there. The thieves took them in the middle of the day from a display at a cathedral near Stockholm. Witnesses say that the men then escaped in a motorboat. The stolen jewels were the funeral crowns of the king and queen from the 17th century. That is "News Stream." I'm Kristie Lu Stout. Don't go anywhere. "World Sport" with Christina Macfarlane is next.