General News
Meropi Kyriacou Honored as TNH Educator of the Year
NEW YORK – Meropi Kyriacou, the new Principal of The Cathedral School in Manhattan, was honored as The National Herald’s Educator of the Year.
ATHENS – With the cost of plastic bags at Greek supermarkets and retail stories more than doubling – from 4 to 9 cents – on Jan. 1, charging for them in 2018 led to a drop in usage of 85 percent in a bid to reduce the amount of plastic waste.
That assessment came from the Hellenic Recycling Agency (EOAN) which said even the small cost of buying thin plastic bags through a so-called ecotax brought a dramatic decline in how many were being used, the aim of the scheme.
Revenues from the levy, which was introduced to help reduce litter and protect wildlife, are estimated at 7.7 million euros ($8.8 million), the data showed, said Kathimerini. The charges were required under a 2015 European Union directive but took Greece three years to implement.
The project requires governments to ensure that by the end of 2019, no more than 90 single-use bags are consumed annually per person. By the end of 2025, that number should drop to 40 bags each. It is estimated that the average Greek used more than 300 plastic bags in 2017.
The rise from 4 to 9 cents was expected to further drop the use of the thinner plastic single-use bags that were littering landfills and the seas, with the cost driving more people to bring their own to the stores or seek alternatives such as fabric bags for multiple use.
The government said it hoped that the increase would reduce the use per person of the bags in supermarkets and other stores to 90 by 2020 and 40 by 2025 but said businesses that use bags with a thickness of 50-70 microns could give them away free with no explanation how that would reduce the use of plastic.
Also, biodegradable and compostable bags will also be free, as will ones thinner than 15 microns although more retailers are selling reusable bags – some of them plastic – as well as cloth and fabric, since charges began on Jan. 1 this year for single use plastic.
The bags are blamed for extensive environmental damage but the government had been slow to move toward the ban or force stores to charge customers even a minimal amount after howls from retailers.
NEW YORK – Meropi Kyriacou, the new Principal of The Cathedral School in Manhattan, was honored as The National Herald’s Educator of the Year.
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A Filipino villager has been nailed to a wooden cross for the 35th time to reenact Jesus Christ’s suffering in a brutal Good Friday tradition he said he would devote to pray for peace in Ukraine, Gaza and the disputed South China Sea.
BRISTOL, Tenn. (AP) — It was in the den that Karen Goodwin most strongly felt her son’s presence: On the coffee table were his ashes, inside a clock with its hands forever frozen at 12:35 a.
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A Filipino villager has been nailed to a wooden cross for the 35th time to reenact Jesus Christ’s suffering in a brutal Good Friday tradition he said he would devote to pray for peace in Ukraine, Gaza and the disputed South China Sea.
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — A bus carrying worshippers on a long-distance trip from Botswana to an Easter weekend church gathering in South Africa plunged off a bridge on a mountain pass Thursday and burst into flames as it hit the rocky ground below, killing at least 45 people, authorities said.