Plastic Bags - Press Coverage. A collection of three articles from The Express on Sunday The Times and The Edinburgh . . .

PLASTIC BAG BAN WILL NOT SAVE THE PLANET

Sunday March 2, 2008

Express On Sunday

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/36694/Plastic-bag-ban-will-not-save-the-planet

Julia Hartley-Brewer

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JUDGING by the news this week, I may be one of the most evil people in Britain today.

No, I haven’t plotted to blow up hundreds of people in an Al Qaeda attack, or been jailed as a serial killer, and I haven’t even kicked a disabled man to death – to take just a small sample of the past week’s stories.

My crime? I use supermarket plastic bags. And – it gets worse – I often throw them away when I get home. Shock, horror, gasp!

This week’s top revelation is that we use 13billion plastic bags every year and a new campaign to ban the supermarkets from handing them out for free is set to brand the average shopper as the wicked witch of the frozen food aisle.

If you don’t believe me, just try asking for a plastic bag the next time you buy a pint of milk and they’ll look at you as if you’ve just clubbed a kitten to death with a French stick in the middle of the “baskets only” queue.

Plastic bags, we’re told by the people with wagging fingers, are going to be the death of us all, not to mention our planet and our children’s children’s children’s future (cue backing tape of We Are The World...)

Not only did Marks & Spencer make an opportunistic leap on to the eco-bandwagon, with a promise to charge 5p for every plastic bag, but even Gordon Brown took time out of his busy schedule to tell us he’s going to bring in a new law banning free plastic bags in supermarkets.

Never mind that the Government can’t clean our hospitals properly leaving thousands to die from superbugs every year. Never mind that they can’t teach our children to read and write. Never mind that they can’t stop the rising tide of gun and knife crime.

Never mind that our prisons are overflowing and thousands of criminals are let out early or never jailed at all because there’s nowhere to put them. Never mind that we have no idea how many terrorists are plotting right now to blow us to smithereens.

At least Gordon Brown can sleep at night knowing he’s tackled the Great Plastic Bag Crisis. Phew.

Sorry, but am I the last person in Britain who doesn’t think plastic bags are going to be the downfall of the human race? Personally, I think they’re rather clever. I find they’re really useful for carrying things.

Do I want seagulls to choke to death on old plastic bags floating out to sea?

No, of course not, but surely that’s about how we dispose of our rubbish, not about how I carry my shopping home in the rain?

The fact is that the world isn’t going to end because supermarkets hand out free plastic bags. Indeed, the world isn’t going to end because of what the human race does at all and we’re certainly not all going to disappear into the ether because of man-made global warming.

The whole eco-argument is nothing but a load of recycled rubbish spouted by the anti-capitalist, anti-globalisation eco-warrior Leftie loons who have somehow managed to spew their eco-fascism into every pore of our democratic process.

Most politicians are only paying lip service to the green agenda because they’re now too scared to speak their minds in this Orwellian atmosphere. Forget the ozone layer, this atmosphere is lethal. The green lobby has got its claws into every nook and cranny of the political, business and media world and anyone who doesn’t agree with them or accept their “facts” is dismissed as a Flat Earther.

This is nothing more and nothing less than McCarthyite bully-boy tactics dressed down in a bobble hat and sandals.

Why do we allow ourselves to be bullied by these idiots? We should tell this lot to go back to their eco-homes and camomile tea and leave the rest of us to do our shopping in peace.

Anyway, I’m off to the shops. Plastic bag, anyone? Only one previous careful lady owner...

Carrier bags last 1,000 years? Fantastic!
The self-righteous eco-bullies at the checkout
The Times

March 3, 2008

Melanie Reid

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/melanie_reid/article3471152.ece

I never thought Id hear myself say this, but good for Tesco. Britains biggest supermarket has defied the Daily Mails brilliant but hugely silly campaign for a ban on plastic bags. In the face of some fairly frenzied eco-bullying of all the supermarkets, Tescos spokesman uttered a sturdy libertarian statement, declaring that Tescos basic philosophy was to change behaviour through incentives and choice, rather than charges, taxes or legislation.

In other words, no bans. The nations secret bag hoarders can relax. At least one organisation has reacted with common sense to the eco-bandwagon whipped up in recent days over that most ubiquitous and humble of everyday accessories.

But already the Mails devastatingly sentimental approach has caused such a stir that the Prime Minister has joined in, giving us his own shameful bag-confessions about online shopping: “Sarah and I ...are left with a bin full of plastic bags, each bag sometimes containing just a handful of items” - Ah, the horror of it! - and he has hinted that he will consider legislation forcing all supermarkets to charge for bags.

Marks & Spencer has joined in too, putting 5p on a bag, thus conveniently diverting attention from its chronic over-packaging of food products, which must contribute significantly to the nations landfill.

On the basis that plastic bags kill dolphins, lodge in the stomachs and beaks of wildlife, float in oceans, pollute the countryside and dont degrade, according to who you listen to, for anything from six months to 1,000 years, we must renounce them with evangelical zeal.

If you believe the polls taken to back this emotional crusade - and nothing beats a cormorant stuck in a plastic bag for emotion (except maybe a kitten, and the papers apparently couldnt find a picture of that) - you will learn that 83 per cent of people are concerned about the impact of plastic bags and 79 per cent say they would be prepared to give them up altogether.

To which the wise will sound a hearty “Aye, right”. If you want to know whether people are really prepared to give up bags, then ask why Tesco is going to continue dishing them out for free. Because Britains most successful food retailer is a weathervane for society: it knows fine that, come the check-in queue on a Saturday morning, after a stressful family shop, people arent going to prioritise the health of dolphins and turtles over their own convenience.

Lidl has been charging for bags for years - for different reasons - and its one of the reasons it is not more popular with the cash-rich and time-poor. In the cutthroat world of supermarkets, free bags and a free market approach is always going to beat eco-evangelism.

And the reason people are not going to give up plastic bags? Its because they are so useful: so very, very useful, in fact, that its hard to think of a single other household item that has more applications across every facet of our lives. Plastic bags, one might say, if it is not in too bad taste, are embedded in society to a much greater extent than they are inside a porpoises gullet. And that is the flaw at the heart of the anti-bag campaign. You might as well try to ban glass, or fridges, bicycles or handkerchiefs; for plastic bags are just as irreplaceable. One can genuinely ask, what did we do before they were invented?

Plastic bags are symbolic of thrifty, sensible Middle England. People take for granted their phenomenal flexibility for carrying, containing, keeping water out or dampness in. Shopping is just the start of it. No man born of woman does not avail himself of a plastic bag at some point in every day, be it for carrying papers, storing smelly gym kit or wet swimming costume, protecting his lunch in the office fridge, or making a parachute for his Action Man.

And no woman, either. Among a myriad uses, plastic bags are irreplaceable for packing shoes, storing paintbrushes in, shredding for craft projects, fancy dress, keeping clothes dry in rucksacks, wrapping round plastered limbs in showers, putting wet umbrellas in, holding rubbish in cars.

We use them to protect the precious and dispose of the dirty - lifting dog waste, wrapping soiled nappies. We line dustbins and lift cat litter; we separate our recycling with them.

Besides, this is a human rights issue. What of the tramps? How can a bag man survive if there are no bags: and arent his needs as great as the dolphins? What will happen to the frugal older generation, for whom plastic bags remain a thing of wonder, precious items to hoard in cupboards and drawers against unknown exigencies? When my parents died I found enough squirrelled-away supermarket bags to wrap the outside of the house, Christo style.

I even hear of one friends mother, resident in France, where supermarket bags are thin and deeply unsatisfactory, who on her trips home collects a big supply of used bags to take back with her. Proving there is an inner Borrower in all of us.

Instead of banning plastic bags, we should be writing eulogies to them: the item that has changed history. Imagine how different it would have been on the Somme, for a start.

Of course we should use fewer bags. But a ban would do nothing but punish the frugal, who already deserve eco-medals, not persecution. And the even more stark truth is that there is no viable alternative. Nylon string or cotton bags arent waterproof, baskets are too bulky, and paper bags are non-reusable and no better for the environment. So what is a bag lady to do? I think we should be told.

Waging war against plastic bags

Date: 04 March 2008

Edinburgh Evening News

http://news.scotsman.com/opinion/Waging--war-against-plastic.3839228.jp

EVEN the Prime Minister has a view on a tax or ban on plastic shopping bags. As even more stores begin charging for them, Hazel Mollison discovers we go through a mountain of them and that concerns are growing for the effect this is having on the environment.

THE average family gets through hundreds a year without a thought, but now the plastic bags handed out freely by supermarkets and high street shops could become as much a thing of the past as smoking in pubs.

Politicians, retailers and environmental groups have declared war on the billion carriers given away each year in Scotland. Marks and Spencer is the latest chain to introduce a charge for them, while Gordon Brown says he would like to see them banned completely by the years end.

Supporters see them as the ultimate symbol of our throwaway society, with many ending up littering our streets and parks as they are discarded after use. They say a similar ban in the Republic of Ireland has reduced bag use by 90 per cent.

But some opponents say these claims are exaggerated, and that banning bags will only have a minimum effect on waste while consumers and small business owners will suffer if a levy is introduced.

Marks and Spencer announced last week it would charge customers five pence per bag from May, joining Lidl, Ikea and B&Q, who already charge for bags.

Chief executive Sir Stuart Rose said a trial in 50 stores resulted in consumers taking away 70 per cent fewer bags. They also raised more than £80,000 for the environmental charity Groundwork.

He said: We want to make it easy for our customers to do their bit to help the environment and our trials have shown us that they want to take action. Just imagine if M&S customers right across the UK cut the number of food bags they use by 70 per cent – thats over 280 million bags theyd be saving every year.

The Scottish Government has already set a target of reducing bag use by 25 per cent by the end of this year but many people think this does not go far enough, and they cannot rely on retailers to take action themselves.

Edinburgh South MSP Mike Pringle is leading calls for a compulsory levy on plastic bags. Although his bill was shelved last year, he hopes to persuade the Scottish Government to reconsider it.

He said: If we really want to get rid of plastic bags, the only way is a charge. To be honest, voluntary agreements never work. Australia managed to get a 34 per cent reduction (although this figure crept up again) but Ireland has managed to achieve a 93 per cent reduction through a compulsory levy. And the great thing is small shopkeepers will actually save money.

One shopkeeper who supports a levy is Aslam Aziz, who owns a fruit and veg shop in Argyll Place.

He said: Im totally in favour of it. It would save me £4500 a year. People will come into my shop and ask for a bag for two onions. We cant really refuse as everyone gives them away.

But Graham Russell of the Federation of Small Businesses says a compulsory charge would be hard on smaller shops.

He said: Legislation is not the answer. A tax on bags would be an administrative nightmare for shopkeepers.

Small businesses are extremely careful about how many bags they hand out, as theyre extremely expensive. They dont put them on the checkouts. Ninety-three per cent of bags are handed out by the top four supermarkets.

Carrier bag producers say they are being unfairly demonised, as bags make up only a small proportion of plastic sent to landfill sites. They say most consumers already reuse or recycle their plastic bags, while alternatives such as paper bags or heavier grade plastic bin bags could be more damaging to the environment.

Peter Woodall of the Carrier Bag Consortium: When people are deprived of free plastic bags they just have to buy them, although the latest research shows than in excess of 70 per cent of people do reuse their plastic carrier bags.

In Ireland, people had to buy more bin bags after the levy was introduced, and the amount of plastic was actually greater than before. Bin bags and refuse sacks are a heavier grade of plastic.

We recycle about 3000 tons of plastic bags in the UK. We turn them into park benches, litter bins on the streets.

Very often the first thing a politician wants to do is tax

it or ban it. Wed rather be educating people than having a tax slapped on it.

But there are signs that Scottish shoppers are becoming more aware of the environment, even if they are slower to embrace the reusable bag than other European countries.

Campaigners in North Berwick aim to make it the first plastic bag-free town in Scotland. They have persuaded stores, including Tesco, to stop issuing free ones.

Meanwhile, Portobello traders are trying to rid the area of plastic bags by selling a range of canvas alternatives under the Porty Shopper brand. A similar scheme in Leith in 2006 saw thousands of cotton shopping bags distributed in the area.

One thing everyone agrees on is that we need to reduce the number of plastic bags we use, through taxation or education.

They may be convenient, but in terms of environmental impact, they are certainly not free.