Green taxes -Plastic bags to be banned ??

Fifer

Most bags are not biodegradable. Many of those which are require UV light to break down effectively which they do not see buried in landfill. The best of the biodegradable ones take 60 days to start to break down. I wonder how many bags two months supply for the UK represents?

Even if the bags were totally and instantly biodegradable, there is still the issue of the energy consumed manufacturing and transporting the bags, as well as the waste of materials and other resources manufacturing something so instantly disposable.

CVID

About time we did this although, as usual, it'll be dragging our heels and kicking and screaming, years after the rest of the world has woken up to the mess these things make.

I suppose this is because in the UK we have quite a large proportion of the population who are fairly unintelligent, uneducated, bloody-minded egocentrics who think that the world is their own, individual, private possession and they see nothing wrong with fouling it up in various ways, akin to some of the posters on this thread.

We should go much further than this measure, bringing back the good old paper bag and forcing shops to supply by measured weight rather than this absurd mountain of 'prepackaging' which, half the time, is only there to hide by its gleam the fact that the stuff is actually a bit dowdy.

This is a small, overcrowded island and we can't turn the whole place into landfill. Just ignore the people whose arguments would have us do this.

gravitytolls

Great. Ireland do this. If you want a plastic bag, you have to pay 15cents, because the shop are charged a tax on carriers. They do provide boxes and paper bags freely in all shops though to compensate.

It's wonderful, we've never seen a bag blighting the countryside.

Magyar's right. I never take bags shopping, as I never remember. I come home with about 20, and if I were paying for them, I'd remember to take bags. Or use boxes ~ which hopefully will be provided.

And I know of folk who if they know they're doing a car boot for instance, will nip in and grab a load because they're free.

Gingham_Ribbon

Hereward wrote: »

It's good to see you are taking steps to reduce your waste. In regards to getting mouldy/maggot infested stuff at the bottom of you bin, have you considered composting, or wrapping the offending items tightly with newspaper?

No. I don't buy a paper and i do compost. I use bags so no need to worry about maggots. The only food waste is occasional cat food. But i wouldn't put cooked food in the composter

And 'taking steps'? I wonder how many families of 4 generate such meagre waste?

Gingham_Ribbon

Fifer wrote: »

Most bags are not biodegradable. Many of those which are require UV light to break down effectively which they do not see buried in landfill. The best of the biodegradable ones take 60 days to start to break down. I wonder how many bags two months supply for the UK represents?

Even if the bags were totally and instantly biodegradable, there is still the issue of the energy consumed manufacturing and transporting the bags, as well as the waste of materials and other resources manufacturing something so instantly disposable.

Doesn't that apply to bin liners too though? Apart from those who are prepared to have loose waste in their bins, aren't bin liners as much of a problem as carrier bags?

Fifer

Gingham_Ribbon wrote: »

Doesn't that apply to bin liners too though? Apart from those who are prepared to have loose waste in their bins, aren't bin liners as much of a problem as carrier bags?

Yes it does. But most people fill bin liners and don't use more than are necessary (or if they do, they shouldn't). It also applies to re-usable shopping carriers, but at least their use is maximised before they are discarded.

Gingham_Ribbon

Fifer wrote: »

Yes it does. But most people fill bin liners and don't use more than are necessary (or if they do, they shouldn't). It also applies to re-usable shopping carriers, but at least their use is maximised before they are discarded.

~That's my point. I use about 3 bags a week which get reused as bin liners. Use maximised before discarded. How is that worse for the environment than using something else to transport groceries then putting waste in another bag?

magyar

peter999 wrote: »

They are then easily misled to think just adding a small tax is acceptable, when it's justs another way to raise some money for other purposes.

You could have a point. Someone has to pay for all the new non-smoking signs we need.

Seriously, though - some people have this constant rhetoric about 'tax raised for other purposes' as though Brown and his cohorts were sitting in a room wallpapered in £50 notes and eating swan.

magyar

Gingham_Ribbon wrote: »

~That's my point. I use about 3 bags a week which get reused as bin liners. Use maximised before discarded. How is that worse for the environment than using something else to transport groceries then putting waste in another bag?

I actually do exactly the same; what works for us is taking two reusable bags and the remainder of the food in two 'free' ones, which then get used as bin liners - the rest of the waste is recycled.

I can't see anything wrong with this, but of course I suspect it's not what most people do, which is the problem.

Perhaps it's black bin liners which should be banned!

To be honest, if I end up paying 20p extra a week, I won't mind too much - if the net result was that everyone did similarly.

sleepymy

I use degradable wheely bin liners and small bin liners. The bag will often stay in the small bin if the contents are just tipped into the wheely bin and often the wheely bin liner will stay attached when it's contents are tipped into the bin lorry. It's handy getting more than one use out of them. The cats litter is tied up in degradable nappy bags after the solids are flushed down the loo.

I think charging is a good scheme, the amount of plastic bags I see people using in the local Tesco is woeful. I shudder to think if these people are using the same amount of new bags every week! It's worked so well in ROI and it'll work well in the UK when people get used to the idea.

P.S. the degradable nappy bags I buy seem to almost melt if they're left to get damp so they must degrade pretty quickly.