Should our supermarkets follow the example set by our European neighbours 
and stop giving out free flimsy plastic bags? How quickly could you adapt to taking your own reusable bags?
I reckon fairly quickly, that was the experience in the Republic of Ireland after a levy was introduced on plastic bags, with the proceeds going towards an environmental fund.
As a result of Minister Miliband’s research on this subject, I am disappointed to see that he has taken the soft option by aiming to reduce our use of plastic bags by 25% within two years, with Defra announcing agreement with UK retailers to reach this goal.
From my personal knowledge, this has already been happening, it is nothing new, just repackaged information. How can the Defra press release describe it as “ambitious”? In fact, the Republic of Ireland is the only country which has shown courage and leadership in this direction and has managed to reduce its use of plastic bags by 90%.
The comments on Minister Miliband’s blog are spot-on, repeatedly saying that once again, the government has failed to directly tackle the issue. And that was after he was able to see for himself how successful the Irish solution was. I wish he had had more courage to at least go for a 50% reduction, to demonstrate some conviction to his beliefs.
If a stumbling block is the fact that shoppers like to re-use their plastic bags as bin liners, then let’s ensure that we provide only bio-degradable bin liners. Shouldn’t all our plastic bags be bio-degrable any way? The standard plastic bags are estimated to take between 500-1,000 years to decompose on our landfill sites, we don’t want them there, adding further pollution too.
When visitors from southern Ireland visit the UK, they are appalled at the constant stream of plastic bags given out to them in our stores. Their government discovered that legislation forced consumers to think more about the environment, they have adjusted to it very well.
Now, for the first time since the implementation of the levy in 2002, the RoI is planning to increase the charge to 15p per bag. This follows an increase in plastic bags believed to be caused by increased consumerism.
Would you like to see our supermarkets switch to paper bags instead of plastic or stop giving them out altogether, do you think Defra’s plans for a 25% reduction within two years is “ambitious”? Do you have a solution to this problem?
Update: 6 March. Jeremy Paxman and plastic bags in today’s Guardian.
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