Birdwatch

I found it annoying and at first wasn't entirely sure why. Surely a move to reduce waste (with great public and corporate and government support!) should be celebrated? But I didn't feel celebratory, I felt quite the opposite.

As I was walking home from work last week I saw two dead toads flattened on the road and I realised why the bag debate had got me down.

One of the images used in a national daily last week was that of a turtle dying from an ingested plastic bag; a very emotive image but barely relevant '“ to us in the UK anyway.

Waste disposal and plastic bags do not feature on the top 10 threats to marine life. The threats to marine life all over the world are complex, such as:

Bycatch, where a quarter of all fish taken from the sea are thrown straight back again '“ dead

Tuna fishing

Shrimp fisheries (5kg of marine life is killed for every 1kg of shrimp harvested)

Petrochemicals

Coastal development

Nuclear powe

Climate change.

Try changing one of those by charging an extra 5p!

And this is my concern. Two major threats to toads in the UK are cars and habitat destruction.

To address either of these issues is difficult. We all '“ and I include myself '“ love our cars and would fight to keep hold of them, so when car use is compared with plastic bag use, which would any sensible politician have a pop at?

The simple and relatively unimportant issue of the bag.

But cars are just one tiny issue for amphibian kind. The world's amphibians are actually in crisis '“ did you know this? Amphibians the world over are suffering mass extinction, and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources says 'addressing the amphibian extinction crisis represents the greatest species conservation challenge in the history of humanity'.

But who cares about frogs and toads? Disease, climate change, habitat destruction and fragmentation, pollution, pesticide use, introduced species are the issues to address for these animals in crisis. Sounds a bit heavy doesn't it?

"But a trendy organic cotton bag with a funky logo? Mmm, now that's much better! I can do something about that!"

2008 is Year of the Frog. The reason for this is to try to raise awareness of the mass extinction they are suffering. But I use them here as just one example of our impact on the natural world we live in.

By all means get yourself a reuseable, organic cotton bag printed with non-polluting inks and stop using plastic. But to avoid trendy tokenism, do something a bit more challenging as well. Cycle to the shops with your new bag, ask questions about the way your fish is caught, donate twice the value of the new bag to an environmental charity or, if you're feeling energetic, make a garden pond for wildlife.

Our frogs, toads and newts need you! You can make a difference '“ a real difference.

This feature was first published in the West Sussex Gazette o n March 19. To read it first, buy the West Sussex Gazette every Wednesday.