One of the most common types of pollution across the countryside is the awful sight of discarded plastic bags, the sight of them flapping in the wind stuck on tree branches or festooned deep in the hedgerow bottoms becomes more familiar as winter approaches due to the flora becoming naked. Therefore some might welcome the new introduction of the 5p charge on the plastic bag in England. I do not, because I do not believe that a 5p charge will change attitudes in any way whatsoever (in fact many shops have been charging anyway for some time), what I do believe in is that a total ban only on plastic bags will remedy the problem. When I was a small boy I used to help my mother carry her shopping bags using the bus, in those days most people used their own shopping bags and plastic bags were less common, however the rise of the supermarket and car meant people only needed to transport their shopping from shopping trolley to car boot and the personal shopping bag fell from use in favour of the plastic bag. The message sent by the introduction of a 5p charge is that plastic bags cause problems when they are free but it is okay to use them if you have to pay for them. In other words plastic bags are a problem but it doesnt matter so long as somebody benefits financially, and the proposal that any money raised will go to charity is not good enough as that simply ensures continuation of an existing problem. Is it really asking too much to ask people to use their own shopping bags as they once did. Only a total ban on plastic bags will ensure its fall from use, and the sooner the better.
The Rise and Fall of the Plastic Bag
- Thread starter Joonsy
- Start date
We only ever use the reusable bag-for-life ones, I even have a little roll up one at the bottom of my rucksack for little shops on the way home from work
Think the point isn't what we do, we've an admitted regard for the countryside being anti-litter is to be expected, it's what the majority do...
My brother lives in Ireland where it's 25c a bag - they look at like you're weird if you want one for normal shopping. Ireland is a lot cleaner than Scotland from my experience so it does /can work I reckon. The 25c is supposed to go to keeping the country clean as well - so a direct benefit to anti-litter as well.
My brother lives in Ireland where it's 25c a bag - they look at like you're weird if you want one for normal shopping. Ireland is a lot cleaner than Scotland from my experience so it does /can work I reckon. The 25c is supposed to go to keeping the country clean as well - so a direct benefit to anti-litter as well.
The charge has been in place in Wales for a while now and you now see more and more people taking their own bags into shops so I would say the 5p charge has certainly cut down on bags overall.
Not sure I see the point of picking on carrier bags. The amount of shrink wrap, plastic and foil trays I see in supermarkets is absurd. If you want to clean up the countryside, ban aluminium drinks cans, plastic pop bottles and triangular sandwich wrappers - that's what I see the most of.
A lot depends on if you're trying to force change on people through financial penalties, or if you're trying to make them consider what their impacts are. Like I said, in my experience the litter visible in the Republic of Ireland is a lot less than in NI or Scotland. That can't just be taxing plastic bags as you say, but once people are thinking along the lines of reducing package usage & reducing litter, there can be a knockon effect. Alsdo once places are cleaner litterers subconsciously will hesitate.
I agree completely with changing behaviour - but how many people consider that their aluminium cans never break down....? Maybe a 10p per can environment tax to pay some poor out of work guy to spend a day in the country to pick them up?
Won't change anything unless it's refundable, it'll just be seen as a price increase and people will carry on regardless, you have to give them an incentive
Carrier bag use goes down, but peddle bin liner sales go up...
Reduce - Reuse - Recycle Although we tend not to use carrier bags for the main shopping trip of the week as we have all sorts of reusable ones which Tesco give extra points for using.
Instead of asking for 5p per bag it would be better to stop them all together, it wouldn't put too many poly bag makers out of work either, they would just make other polythene products instead, all of which are a blight on the landscape once discarded randomly.
Reduce - Reuse - Recycle Although we tend not to use carrier bags for the main shopping trip of the week as we have all sorts of reusable ones which Tesco give extra points for using.
Instead of asking for 5p per bag it would be better to stop them all together, it wouldn't put too many poly bag makers out of work either, they would just make other polythene products instead, all of which are a blight on the landscape once discarded randomly.
A empty aluminium can is around 15 grams. So ~66 cans per kg.
Scrap aluminium prices seem to be 50-60p per kg.
So each can is worth less than a penny.
Perhaps should stop making them out of aluminium and use copper.
Scrap aluminium prices seem to be 50-60p per kg.
So each can is worth less than a penny.
Perhaps should stop making them out of aluminium and use copper.
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I'd have gone £1 per bag... making the average 'big family shop' almost a tenner more expensive
I personally use plastic bags for recycling etc but we're lost the culture/mindset of re-using our disposable items
Perhaps a £10 increase in a weekly shop would re-kindle the shopping bags of olde?
5p just isn't enough IMHO
I personally use plastic bags for recycling etc but we're lost the culture/mindset of re-using our disposable items
Perhaps a £10 increase in a weekly shop would re-kindle the shopping bags of olde?
5p just isn't enough IMHO
How about gold inlaid with diamonds. Folk would think twice before discarding them then
To be honest I don't like the look of biodegrable bags in nature either. Same goes for banana peel, apple cores and stuff like that.
In my ideal little fantasy world, when you get caught leaving their trash, you should have to pick up other peoples trash for let's say 600 hours?
THey do that in Germany - so long as you've a receipt for the drink. Was at an away game in Stuttgart where the local tramps had a field day, standing outside the supermarkets collecting the receipts off the football fans, then filling trolleys with the empties from the big party in the town square. Was nice that once the footy fans realised they kept the reciepts for the tramps & started putting the empties back into shopping trolleys for the tramps to return them.
Not been that evident in Ireland where the bag tax has been in place for years. We don't need too much supposition about it - there's clear evidence it works quite well.
We used to do it here - charging a deposit on a glass bottle and refunding it when the bottle was returned. Can't see why it wouldn't work still
I seem to remember biodegradable carrier bags maybe 20 - 25 years ago. They felt 'orrible in the hand but they were...biodegradable.
I have some green rubble sacks made of the same stuff from Poundland and they feel 'orrible and guess what? They're biodegradable.
I have some green rubble sacks made of the same stuff from Poundland and they feel 'orrible and guess what? They're biodegradable.
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