Plastic bag tax

saverbuyer

mildred1978 wrote: »

How does it do that if the money goes to charity, not into the public purse??

Eh no, it actually will be used to fund "environmental projects". There's already a requirement for such projects to be funded by the Executive so instead of diverting existing money through cutting somewhere else they introduce a new levy.

Mistral001

I am not sure if the money will go to charity as in Wales. It seems not the best way of doing things. It is like emotional blackmail. It is like when some people want ato do something exciting and decide to a skyjump in Serbia or something. They get all their aquaintances to "sporsor" them and end up spending the money on "expenses" like the actual training and the jump and even hotel accommodation in some cases. Refuse and your some sort of mean guy who wants to see cancer patients die etc.

Badger_Lady

I was very worried about how the implementation would work here in Wales (and although the NI scheme may vary it will have strong parallels). However it's actually all gone very smoothly and I've not had a problem with it at all. At Christmas this year we all gave each other posh shopping bags (made from fabric or shaped like strawberries) and use those as habit now.

ariba10

saverbuyer wrote: »

Exactly, it is all about raising more money from soft sources and saying it environmental.

This about plugging a hole in the public finances. Nothing more nothing less.

I live in Wales.

The pay for a bag scheme came in on 1st October last year, and they have not had a penny out of me yet.

saverbuyer

ariba10 wrote: »

I live in Wales.

The pay for a bag scheme came in on 1st October last year, and they have not had a penny out of me yet.

We expect to raise £4 million annually.

steveymp

I don't see the problem TBH, I've been using "Bags for Life" for years now, Tesco even pay me in clubcard points for using them:T Tesco have supplied most of mine for free when they had promotions on them and replaced several for free, they even replaced my worn out Asda bags for free to get more advertising:T

M&S have been doing this for sometime now and I stocked up on their "Bags for Life" when they started handing them out for free I intentionally go to M&S with crusty old single use Tesco bags to bag my shopping, if a nice manager sees this they will offer to replace the tesco ones for nice heavy M&S ones for free:T

spike7451

Lidl's already charge 3p minimum depending on the bag for them.

Ben84

The real bag tax is shops handing out bags which cost money as if they were free and charging everyone who shops there (including people who don't use the bags) by increasing the cost of food.

As recently as the 1980s reusable bags were common place, but retailers started to realise handing out bags without directly charging encouraged spur of the moment shopping and helped get their branding and advertising out there more. Most retailers are not doing it as a favour to you, they get a lot out of this and charge you for it as a service that you can't in many shops opt out of paying for.

I started to see things this way when I started to remove the advertising from my life. It's amazing just how much most people pay to advertise big companies and how they don't even see it. Carrier bags are just one aspect of this, but it's important to realise that you're giving a message to lots of people everyday through the bags you use and do you really want that message to be "shop at X"? Don't think people don't notice, I have two bags, one about an exhibit at the British Museum and another with a painting printed on it and loads of people mention them or start a conversation about them.

Anyway, as someone who largely doesn't use the disposable plastic bags, I stand to benefit a little and so do many others from a tax on them. From my angle a government imposed tax on plastic bags would lift a retailer imposed 'tax' for providing subsidised advertising.

Mr_Bun

How will it work at the self-service tills in Tesco/Asda,etc?Will the bags have a bar code to scan?
I also think it is a total scam,just another way to tax us!!!

BTW re.Tesco giving green points for reusing bags,at the self service tills you can get 3 points free without anyone checking whether or not you actually are reusing bags...I do it all the time and never bring my own bags:)

Mistral001

Ben84 wrote: »

Don't think people don't notice, I have two bags, one about an exhibit at the British Museum and another with a painting printed on it and loads of people mention them or start a conversation about them.
.

How cool is that? I have Harrod's bags myself. It really impresses the neighbours when I take the shopping out of the car.