Will paying for plastic bags make us greener?

It definitely changed things in Ireland when they introduced it in 2002. Here is an article from the BBC at that time saying that it had created a 90% drop in plastic bag usage. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2205419.stm Mind you, they were then charging 15c per bag, a lot more than the proposed cost in Wales now. It’s gone up to 22c per bag now, which is a major deterrent to using them and I have noticed that the bags you do end up buying sometimes (I, for one, often walk out of the house without my shopping bags), are flimsy and break easily. It has raised millions of Euros in Ireland and cut down on the number of plastic bags that were often seen flying about as litter. All in all, I think it’s a great thing to have introduced this. I don’t know why the UK has taken so long to get there. Think of the revenue and the help to the environment.

Like mhanley I wonder if just 5p is going to be that big a deterrent. Maybe 20p would be better. It would have set you back £2, Hannah! I also sometimes forget to take my shopping bags with me and end up using new bags and I feel guilty about it too. If I were charged 20p a pop I’d be surer to remember to take my shopping bags with me wherever I went!

I totally agree that Wales has the right idea. The scheme does need all retailers on board to really get into people’s mindsets and work properly and it should be really rolled out throughout the UK.

Re Marks and Spencer charging for bags; if you food shop, they charge 5p per bag to carry home products which themselves are packaged in oversized, non recyclable containers, yet buy something in any other department and a bag is given automatically.

I am in favour of all taxation that is avoidable [like betting, smoking and other pleasures] so I have no problem with a tax on plastic bags but it must apply to all purchases, not just essential food shopping which would bear more heavily on those on lower incomes. Everyone forgets to take their reusable bags out from time to time and we have a cupboard full of bags for life bought on such occasions, so the imposition of a penalty for taking plastic bags might discipline us into compliance. But while I agree with a previous comment about excess packaging in M&S, unfortunately some shops are so cheese-paring with their packaging that bags are essential for product protection and separation. [Why is the best butter wrapped in a piece of greaseproof paper that gets torn while the “not-really-quite-as-nice-as-butter” spreads all come in sharp-edged plastic tubs that puncture the yogurt pot lids?] Aldi shops won’t wait while you carefully put your stuff away into your separate bags for each commodity – it all comes wooshing off the belt into your box or trolley in no particular order with the washing powder on top of the ice cream on most occasions. Waitrose only release their own bags under protest, interrogate you on how many bags you’ve brought with you, whether they are standard size or extra large, and – if you’ve been sufficiently worthy – give you little green Ludo counters to put in one of three drums to support your choice of local charity. But never go to Tescos without your own bags because their ordinary plastic bags are so small, thin and useless that they split or break before you even get home. Morrisons plastic bags are the best for size and strength and can be reused many times over. Sainsburys used to provide large strong paper bags that would last ever so long [I still have two that must be over twenty years old] so why cannot the supermarkets and all other retailers do the same today [as Primark do]?

Totally, totally agree with this, many EU countries have adopted this, the UK, as per norm in the eco-awareness stakes lags far behind her neighbours. Retailers will more than re-coup the price of bags where they have to be issued and, more importantly, fewer bags,taking an eon to bio-degrade, if at all, end up in landfill. In reality it shouldn’t cost us anything other than a change in attitude – we remember to take the strong canvas/hessian bags (or keep them in the car) as much as we remember to take my wallet (please note it’s always MY wallet :)). It’s a no brainer. No excuse. Do not pass Go until you re-use your bags. Simple as. End of.

Do away with all plastic bags Costco don’t supply bags of any description although they might have the occasional cardboard box which is re-cyclable.I come from a time when there was no such thing as a plastic bag. Ban the plastic!!!!