Finland’s top nature magazine Suomen Luonto has awarded plastic shopping bags with the title of ‘Most useless object of 2016’ in its annual comparison. Previous year’s winners include a plastic egg container, bottled water from abroad and scented diaper pails.
The magazine chose the winner from over 500 reader entries. It justified its choice by saying that it wanted to call attention to the environmental damage caused by useless plastic bags in Finland.
It says the average Finnish resident uses about 55 plastic shopping bags a year. This translates into a total of 300 million plastic bags a year. The magazine also estimates that Finns use about 900 million thinner plastic bags for the transport of produce each year.
A picture gallery of things you can do without
The Finnish Broadcasting Company Yle asked people to send in pictures of things they feel are superfluous or useless in their home. Find a selection below of the submissions and the accompanying comments.
Maritta says: “This is some kind of beauty treatment tool that I’ve never used and I have no recollection how I got it. Maybe it was a free giveaway with something else. It’s supposed to work with batteries.”
Sirkka L: “A belly button warmer. Hardly ever used, as I need a bit more to keep me warm when it gets cold”
VälkkyB: “A light-up battery-powered ice cube? We did recycle it as a rear light on our bike. Waterproof too! May not last very long in that use.”
Ansku says: “I don’t really know what this is, we got it as a wedding present. Useless in any case!”
Pentti Jaskari writes: “I bought these scissors in Gothenburg so I could make mobile decorations of straw. I don’t know what they are; very strange-looking.”
vilmus: “Here’s a decoration that’s found in many homes.”
mattipo: “I got this USB computer keyboard vacuum as a gift. It doesn’t vacuum well and it made my ThinkCentre desktop computer crash. You can use the brush part to clean the keyboard, I guess…”