Wales leads the way on plastic bags

[alan refail]

Plastic bags to cost 7p from next spring. Well done Assembly Government


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/10227459.stm

[Elderflower]

Excellent!
I can`t really see that it would harm families on low incomes, as asserted by the British Retail people.
I`m on a small pension and have a shopping bag with home made cloth bags for when I do a bigger shop.
Let`s see if England can follow suit!

[Primrose]

A good example to follow. We always use our own sustainable bags for shopping but I wonder what the Welsh the dog walkers are going to do now that they won't be able to use their Sainsbury's plastic bags to collect their dog poo in? I think there are an awful lot of dog owners who will just leave it lying on the ground if they don't have a freebie plastic bag for collecting purposes.

[Elderflower]

I know what you mean Primrose, and I hope this doesn`t happen.
I do worry though, about the environmental impact of carefully wrapping dog droppings in plastic and sending them to landfill.
There must be a better way.
Newspaper has been recommended as an alternative but it`s a bit fragile.
Dunno - - -

[snooky]

Yep,buy the bag for 7 pence and pack your shrink-wrapped swedes,cucumbers,tomatoes,mushrooms packaged in plastic,dry goods over packaged attractively to entice you to buy them.
Not for the first time has our Welsh Assembly Government got it wrong in pandering to the "green brigade"who regard "Joe Public"as an easy target,instead of targetting big business who appear want to supply more and more packaging.
Who is going to police this?Who is going to count the bags sold by these stores and make sure the monies go to the charities?And will these so-called environmental charities spend the monies received in the U.K. or on some mickey mouse project in Africa or other far flung place where palms have to be greased so that there is very little money in the pot to get that project into reality.
But,apparently,the majority of people here in Wales want to pay this extra tax!!!Codswallop-this one certainly does not.

[Geoff]

I have never understood the plastic bag hate campaign, I think we should start a plastic bag protection society. Might be an idea to build up a collection as it won't be that long before they feature on "Cash in the Attic" and the like. It is simply a badly directed campaign, as Snooky says it is all the other packaging that dwarfs the plastic bag contribution. Surely more sensible to force supermarkets to provide plastic bags but sell everything else loose. The ones we get have several lives before they get to landfill whereas other packaging goes straight there. There are so many other stupidities, why are toothpaste tubes in cardboard boxes for example?

[Primrose]

Although I agree in principle with the idea of supermarkets handing out plastic bags willy nilly, I'd be sad to see them disappear altogether. Those I do acquire are rolled up and suffed into a cupboard where they come in useful for all kinds of things such as:.
- storing washed lettuces in the fridge with roots on & bunching onions which I dig up from the garden.
- sealing newspaper wrapped prawn shells/fish bones before putting in dustbin. (I sometimes put prawn shells in compost heap, but not in hot weather out of respect for my next door neighbour)
- carrying bottles of wine when going out visiting
- using as a cover for my garden kneeling pad to stop it getting muddy
- using one rolled up in my handbag for collecting litter when out walking.
- keeping one in the car to collect litter such as car park tickets, sweet wrappers, etc.

I'm sure lots of other people keep a store of them for various domestic odds and ends and many of them will be used more than once.

[Elderflower]

I had a swift look round the house/garden and found several similar uses, Primrose!

[alan refail]

Tomorrow Italy goes all the way and bans them:-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12097605

Italy was the first place I saw massive use of plastic bags in supermarkets some 40 years ago. So popular were they that within a year or so towns and the countryside were littered with their tattered remains.

Meanwhile the Welsh Assembly has backtracked and charging for bags will come in next autumn rather than spring as planned and the charge will be 5 pence a bag rather that 7 pence.

[Shallot Man]

Why not put a charge on the suppliers for unnecessary packaging.

[PLUMPUDDING]

When I was small, there were strong brown paper carrier bags with string handles and these cost 4 pence, which was the same price as a Mars Bar at the time. People used to use shopping baskets which lasted for years.

The main difference now is that people go shopping less often because they don't have to carry everything home and therefore need more containers to put it in, and the handing out willy nilly of plastic bags by supermarkets has become the norm. A charge should help to change the mindset.

[Nature's Babe]

Agree about the supermarkets, trying to be positive and suggesting recycled compressed bio degradable containers for veg that can be composted. I might recycle some attractive boot fair bargains into such attractive shopping bags they will all want one!
people might start getting concerned when they realise the plastic underwater rafts in the ocean are degrading and polluting our food chain...the fish we eat, less in tiny fish more in the predator fish.

[Colin Miles]

Not quite first. Italy has banned them.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/busine ... -bags.html

[peter]

For dog poo nappy sacks are best, being totally without holes, an appropriate size and cheap, also less plastic.
I believe it is treated as "toxic waste" and incinerated.
There have been cases of householders being prosecuted by councils for putting it in their domestic rubbish.

Toothpaste tubes are in cardboard boxes for handling purposes, try stacking them otherwise.

But the more general point holds good, it is more sensible to stop waste at source rather than penalising the consumer, or, trying to sort piles of rubbish by type.

[alan refail]

Not quite first. Italy has banned them.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/busine ... -bags.html

Hi Colin

SNAP

viewtopic.php?p=88224#p88224