h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The government levy on plastic bags in this country was intended less to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and more to reduce the number of plastic bags festooning the hedges and ditches of every road and byway in the land. By and large, it worked.

TRiG.

there is no such tax on plastic bags in oz and i see no great incidence of these bags in litter. i am reminded at this point of that infamous correlation with the decline of pirates.

think about it. you take your shopping home. you are indoors. how does that bag end up in a hedgerow in the country?

the answer is that it is the same bag type, different source. the bags that end up as litter are nearly always from fast food takeouts. a ban on those i'd support. but i think you'll find a lot of those outlets like maccas voluntarily moved to paper about a decade ago.

hence your perception of reduction.

Here's how plastic bags end up in hedgerows:

You take your shopping home. You unpack it.

You either

a) put the bags in the bin, from where they might end up in landfill, or the bin might blow over and release the bags into the wild

or

b) you use the bag to carry something else. Like a picnic. And when you've finished you throw away the bag.

Most bags will proudly advertise which store they came from on the side, so I don't think its a confusion as to the origin of the bags.

Just because something isn't observed in Australia doesn't automatically mean it can't be a issue in Ireland.

i was addressing your issue of causation, which strikes me as faulty. if this were landfill blow off, and this is a far more serious issue than shopping bags, you would also see lots of other types of bags in hedgerows. kitchen tidy bags for example.

i really do doubt the incidence of people going picnicking with shopping bags. and even if they did, i don't see how a tax on the bag will impact on their ultimate destination.

i'm not trying to be mean here, and i do respect your opinions. but i really do think this is a solution in search of a problem which, unfortunately, actually has the potential to CREATE a problem.

to listen to the bag banners one might think there were mountains of these bags flying around the virgin countrysides and city streets of every country that has shopping. i have seen no evidence of it in my travels and have yet to see anyone produce any objective data that suggests this is a real problem.

Slightly concerned that I seem to be agreeing with Antigravitas here, but the *only* claimed environmental impact of plastic carrier bags (other than visual pollution) is the death of wildlife, and in this case plastic bags appear to be a fairly insignificant contributor.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article3508263.ece

Surely there's only one source of plastic bags as litter?

People.


RF

don't be concerned dave. for my part i am always pleased when i agree with you.

and this part bears reposting from dave's link. those bin liners are a much denser plastic and unlike shopping bags WILL take ages to degrade.

'Charlie Mayfield, chairman of retailer John Lewis, said that tackling packaging waste and reducing carbon emissions were far more important goals. “We don’t see reducing the use of plastic bags as our biggest priority,” he said. “Of all the waste that goes to landfill, 20 per cent is household waste and 0.3 per cent is plastic bags.” John Lewis added that a scheme in Ireland had reduced plastic bag usage, but sales of bin liners had increased 400 per cent.'

>for my part i am always pleased when i agree with you.<



>Surely there's only one source of plastic bags as litter?

People.<

True, but they're difficult to get rid of. Much easier to pick on the bags.

Very tempting to ban the people though! Bags I get to chose who goes first

Good point - the most important bit of Reduce Reuse Recycle is of course Reduce - we need to produce less waste in total.

Some points.

1) It's better that people use bin liners or bin bags for the purpose that they were intended, rather than a carrier bag. Firstly, they only purchase what they need, secondly, it avoids things like cats ripping open impromptu bags, in countries where you can still put your waste out in a bag.

2) For sure plastic bag bans will not save the planet on their own - it's a small benefit, there are bigger issues - but, encouraging people to move to more permanent bags is still a benefit.

3) Littering - the number formerly known as antigrav might be very good at disposing of their plastic bags, many people just throw them on the street when they had consumed the contents, along with the rest of the packaging. When I lived in Liverpool, there were loads caught in fences, brambles etc.

sprout

I think unintentional 'looseing' of the bags is a major problem (as far as they are a problem), they do find ways of escaping!

1. reusing shopping bags as bin liners is recycling, and commits them to landfill, where they serves a useful function of stabilising the fill before they break down. i can't imagine how backward a place would be that still allows loose bags of household waste for collection. in such a place shopping bags would be the least of your worries.

2. the benefit of heavier plastic bags is fictitious. they do not have long lives, are often misplaced, or are simply not taken shopping. have you never had to make some purchases on the way home from work and had to buy another of these bags? almost everyone has. if they haven't they have accepted the normal shopping bags. so the idea that the number of them made is proportional to their actual use cannot hold.

3. most people do not consume the entire contents of their grocery shopping bags before they get home. most people don't use the goods at all until they get home. the bags go home with them. you are talking about fast food plastic bags. the international chains no longer use them and i have no problem with these bags carrying a cost. and regardless of your anecdotal evidence, the data suggests that shopping bags are a tiny fraction of overall litter. and lets be blunt, some folks will litter whether they paid a few cents tax on the bag or not. think about it...why on earth would someone who litters CHANGE their bad habits simply because they paid a few cents extra for the bag? there is no logic to that notion whatever.

'hey man, i paid 5 cents for that bag, i better find a bin...'

ummmm nup.

I'm sure it's lovely to live in a place where there aren't plastic bags blowing around, but when I'm in the UK I notice it straight away. It's not the heavier ones, it's those dratted thin ones and they really get everywhere. From wherever - they are a bloomin' pest.

Here there was a rule that free bags weren't to be allowed, I think, but that seems to have gone by the board. Generally there is less littering here - but it is a lot worse now than it was about 20 (or even 10) years ago. And we don't have the problem that a lot of litter bins have gone as they have in the UK.

We use bin bags made of, I think, corn starch or something like that. They are great for the bio bin (what you are allowed to put in that varies from region to region) - some supermarket carrier bags are made of this stuff too but they're no good for really heavy shopping.

Maybe the point is that it gets consumers thinking about plastic bags, and trying to change their mindset away from the throw-away mentality.

And yes I know that's being generous as to the intent of the government , but if the end result is that people are more careful about bag usage, then that's a good thing, right?

Anything that reduces the amount of plastic now to be found in the enviroment , has to be a good thing .
If you cast a line into the Thames estuary and then reel in after half an hour . It looks like one of those prayer flags you see on Tibetan mountains , there is so much shredded plastic in the water . I find this quite shocking and it saddens me greatly .
As to if we can change our ways , I seriously doubt it . I believe it is in our nature to be selfish , greedy , parasites .

best fishes.....tod

'hey man, i paid 5 cents for that bag, i better find a bin...'

Don't diss it till you've tried it.

No, you didn't pay five, or even twenty-five, cents for that bag. You simply didn't take a bag at all. They're no longer on display to be grabbed by the handful. You have to ask for them, and pay for them. This creates a different mindset. Nowadays, just about everyone keeps strong carrier bags in the car. (I don't. I don't drive. I live across the road from Lidl, have a Statoil corner shop almost next door, and a shopping centre just up the road.)

Listen, it worked. I live here, and I can tell you. It worked. And the government truly isn't using it as a revenue generator. When it stopped working, they put the price up till it started working again.

TRiG.

One of the problems in the UK is that everyone who thinks it's their responsibility for collecting rubbish tries to blame someone else for it being their problem.

This includes: Councils who will only collect rubbish fortnightly.

The London Underground: Still has no bins because of the IRA placing bombs in bins.

British Snail: Same excuse as LU.

People (again): Can't be arsed taking their rubbish home with them, instead have to throw it away immediately.

London* Parks: Only provide 1 litter bin every 5,000 yards - why not wake up, smell the coffee, and provide (i) more bins; (ii) some recycling facilities?**

RF

* and, for all I know, other cities, towns, and villages outside London. I'm told such places exist.

** Any would do.

Except for a tiny minority which are incinerated, every plastic bag ever created still exists.

Think about that for a minute - look along the line of tills in your supermarket - each of which has a rack holding at least a thousand plastic bags - and that's just one supermarket, now think of all the supermarkets in your town. Now of all the ones in the country. Now add in DIY stores, and department stores. Think of all those millions of bags, that will not breakdown in landfills but will form a permanent layer within the soil.

Cardboard bags made from recycled paper are a very valid option.

i think most of the points made above have already been addressed. either way i can't possibly revisit all of them again.

the important points in this discussion from my end are:

1. anecdotes are not science. the research does not indicate these bags are a problem of any significance.

2. the replacements for plastic shopping bags are worse than the bags themselves. every single one of the alternatives researchers have suggested in this thread has a greater ecological cost than the current bags. people need to stop being so narrow minded about degradability, that they fail to consider issues of energy cost, water cost and habitat destruction. (all three are important considerations when it comes to paper or cardboard)

3. re using, reducing and recycling the existing bags is a good thing. right minded people already do this. small taxes will unlikely induce vandals to change their ways. as per (2), banning will only result in worse alternatives entering the waste stream.

4. littering is a complex problem that requires co ordinate responses across a range of agencies. the idea that it is fixable with bans and taxes is to my mind disingenuous. modern, intelligent waste management systems, suitable disposal and recycling points, public education, punitive measures and many more things will be necessary. if you live in places where these things need to be done; then your task, if you are genuinely concerned, is known.

in the meantime, shopping bag bans and taxes are about as releveant and effective as save the whale t shirts.