Plastic not-so-fantastic
Anna:
May 2nd, 2007
Following Alex’s post about the trendy but far from green statement bag that’s recently gone on sale, I was inspired to do a bit of research into global plastic bag trends. I agree with Alex totally that these gimmicky bag for life offerings do nothing to curb our use of the nasty plastic. In fact, daaahling, surely you should double-wrap those groceries to avoid any nasty spills onto the pristine cotton of your carrier??
So I read about anti-polythene laws in India, punitive measures in South Africa to discourage use of flimsy plastic bags and so on. Then I came to an article from 2002 about the introduction of a tax on plastic shopping bags in the Republic of Ireland. Oh yes, I thought, I remember that – presumably a bit of a failure since we’ve never heard much about it since? But no, far from it!! The 15% tax has cut use of plastic bags in Eire by a whopping 90%. So why are we so slow in catching on here in the UK? Here’s a perfect opportunity to reduce plastic waste and raise millions of quid in revenue, which could perhaps go towards environmental projects or fund public awareness campaigns and research. Never mind all this arseing around with “green Clubcard points”, let’s just ditch the evil placcy bags once and for all. There is a plethora of alternatives – cotton (the friendly, fair-trade kind) or jute bags, rucksacks, paper sacks to name but a few. Personally, I think we should all go back to using baskets – easier to carry stuff in, non-squishy and a creator or “personal space” on the Tube – result!
Check out E-Petitions and search for “plastic bags”. You’ll find a number of petitions urging the government to reduce the use of, tax or ban plastic bags – sign up and help make the issue more widely known!
May 3rd, 2007 at 10:06 am
People are so easily conned. The Indian ban has not been implemented and the South African law wa changed to benefit slightly heavier locally made bags over the imported variety.
Politians in Ireland lied to the public when their tax was introduced. They told the Irish that plastic shopping bags made up more than 5% of litter, when the real figure wa 0.75%. Then then told the public that the tax had reduced bag use by over 90% based on the amount of tax they collected – but did not say that compliance was less than complete and real usage rates – as evidenced by import figures was much higher. As complaince increased, tax collected went up. This resulted in the third con – an increase in the tax because bag use ‘had gone up’!
Meanwhile ireland’s imports of bin liners increased by 400% and, although shopping bag litter went down to 0.2% – total plastic bag type litter still is more than ten times that amolunt – so the environment does not win either.
The scottish parliament has recently completed a full public inquiry into a plastic bag tax and concluded that it is not worth doing. Details can be obtained through the DEFRA web site.
Gerard, Sydney, Australia