As the government leaps from one environmental issue to another, it is about time it completed one of its earlier initiatives. I refer to the tax that was created for the use of thin, and ultra thin, plastic shopping bags a couple of years ago.

These bags can take up to 1,000 years to disintegrate and are a threat to birds, animals and marine life.

When the plastic bag tax was introduced, there was a visible drop in their use, as everybody carried strong, reusable shopping bags with them.

Supermarkets gave or sold strong handled, thick plastic bags, producers gave away fold-up, reusable nylon bags, and some people reverted to carrying their shopping baskets of old.

However, since that good beginning, usage of the thin bags has gradually rebounded until we use as many as we ever did. What happened to the taxation? Are the makers passing it on to the shop owners who in turn are charging the customers?

On my return home from a recent shopping trip, I counted 17 small and large thin, or ultra thin, plastic bags, which cannot be re-cycled or re-used.

Last summer, I spent a miserable time in the sea, either avoiding jellyfish or removing thin plastic bags from my snorkel. Neither one is a pleasant experience. These bags are eaten by turtles who choke to death on them, This, in turn, allows the jellyfish to escape their natural predator and come to our shoreline. So far this year, I have not seen any jellyfish, but I have observed a great many plastic bags floating in the sea.

So, while Lawrence Gonzi ponders on the difficult question of how best to distribute energy saving light bulbs (how about through local councils? Duh!), perhaps he could take another look at earlier initiatives and see that they are maintained, rather than just giving lip service on environmental issues to appease the EU.