EU Plastic Bag Debate Highlights a Wider Global Problem 470
jones_supa writes "An EU citizen uses around 200 plastic bags per year. That's too much, says the EU. But wasting plastic bags is not just a European problem. Countries around the world are struggling with the issue, and it especially affects growing economies such as Asia. Some Southeast Asian countries don't even have the proper infrastructure in place to dispose of the bags properly. The problems for the environment are many. Plastic bags usually take several hundred years until they decay, thereby filling landfills, while animals often mistake the plastic for food and choke to death. Additionally they are a major cause of seaborne pollution, which is a serious hazard for marine life. This autumn, EU started ambitious plans which aim to reduce usage 80% by 2017. Some countries have already applied measures to slow plastic bag use: England has added a 5p charge to previously free bags, and in Ireland the government has already imposed a tax of 22 euro cents ($0.29) per plastic bag. The EU Environment Commissioner, Janez Potonik, said, 'We're taking action to solve a very serious and highly visible environmental problem.'"
Taxing is not going to fix the problem (Score:4, Insightful)
This gets fixed by developing a better bag. Better means comparable cost and strength, with handles and environmentally safe.
Jumping straight away to a tax makes it look like nothing more than a money grab.
Re:Easy to ACTUALLY solve (Score:3, Insightful)
You don't need to charge a premium, which does absolutely nothing to mitigate the problem of the bags which ARE thrown away, and only an idiot would believe that the majority of the population will take good care of plastic sacks because they cost them 5p a piece.
That's just it. It does work, and it did work, in Ireland. I remember when the fee came into place and the number of plastic bag littler noticeably dropped, because it wasn't the big supermarkets that was causing all the waste. It was the local corner shop, where people would go to pickup a pint of milk, or the paper and some smokes and forget to bring a bag with them. All of sudden having to pay 15%-25% extra on top of your pint of milk (I forget how much it was relatively) and most people just carried it home in their hand.
Re:Taking exception to a statement in the summary (Score:4, Insightful)
The decay rate of polyethylene is on sturdier ground than the decay rate of modern concretes and steels, so I don't think there's much cause for pathological scepticism. Unless you're unduly concerned that your roof is about to fall in on your head.
Re:Taxing is not going to fix the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
remember to bring to the store
This is the big one. It's quite common to pop into a shop on the way home, and unless you're driving you won't have a bag with you. I'd love it if shops would give you a bag for a deposit and return the deposit when you returned the bag.
Re:Taxing is not going to fix the problem (Score:3, Insightful)
1) You don't have to wash them after ever visit, unless you're buying, like, unwrapped raw chicken in which case you've got bigger problems
2) You don't have to remember to bring them to the store so long as you have the presence of mind to know that you're going to the store, or to keep one in a handy place for unexpected runs.
Re:Taxing is not going to fix the problem (Score:1, Insightful)
1) You don't have to wash them after ever visit, unless you're buying, like, unwrapped raw chicken in which case you've got bigger problems
If you want to take your chances with bacteria, salmonella, etc.--go for it.
2) You don't have to remember to bring them to the store so long as you have the presence of mind to know that you're going to the store, or to keep one in a handy place for unexpected runs.
In other words, you don't have to remember to bring them to the store, just as long as you remember to bring them to the store.
This issue isn't so black and white (Score:3, Insightful)
Some do, mostly "low cost" stores
And if you look at the places that have introduced the charge, such as M&S, many have adopted a "small bag is free, full size bags are charged" policy as well, presumably in response to negative feedback from customers.
Some other curious data points on this issue, which isn't nearly as black-and-white as it might seem:
For one thing, it turns out that lots of people do "recycle" those "disposable" plastic bags. When Ireland introduced a tax on plastic bags, bin liner purchases increased by 400% [theguardian.com].
For another thing, while plastic bags are more environmentally unfriendly than paper bags when discarded, they are more efficient to transport in large numbers, and in practice that inefficiency translates rather directly into increased pollution, greater consumption of non-renewable fuel types for vehicles, and so on. The facts about resources used and pollution generated in manufacture aren't entirely one-sided either.
If the government really wanted to help the environment, they could politely encourage supermarkets to start selling the actually good reusable plastic bags that at least Sainsbury's and Tesco had a few years ago, which were much larger and tougher than the jokes they sell as reusable today (OK, you can reuse them, maybe two or three times before they fall apart). These actually seemed to be quite popular at the time, and we still use some of ours many years later, but the supermarkets that had them all switched to a different and much inferior type after a relatively short time; I don't know why.
In addition, far more environmental good would be done if the government slapped a significant tax on all packaging materials at the source, so that using excessive or unnecessary packaging carried a direct financial penalty. This step alone would almost certainly cut the volume of environmentally unfriendly waste -- meaning waste that can't be recycled or otherwise dealt with other than sending it to landfill -- more than even making all single-use bags of any type completely illegal.
So whenever you see a government official of whatever political affiliation making some claim about helping the environmental by taxing the supply of plastic bags, you should immediately ask what their real agenda is. If they're not also advocating more general restrictions on packaging, and they're not also advocating restricting other environmentally unfriendly practices such as supplying one-time paper bags when reusable bags could be used, then they're probably hiding some ulterior motive and/or capitalizing on some political talking point of the day.
Re:England (Score:4, Insightful)
Errr, why don't you keep the rest in the boot (or trunk or regionally-named-subvehicular-enclosed-storage-area)? What value are they serving in your house?
Bring one in, still have 19 left in the boot. When the pile inside gets noticeable, take them back out to the car. (This is what I do. Although more like 6 than 20.)
Re:Taxing is not going to fix the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Funnily enough the bacteria, salmonella etc. have a hard time getting through the plastic that my meat comes wrapped in, and my fruits and vegetables get washed to remove "store germs" from everyone who's been handling them anyway. It's amazing how people can make the most trivial change to their habits sound like an invitation for catastrophe.
You don't have to remember to take the bags if you have them with you; and it's no additional effort to remember to take the bags if you are of sufficient mental competence that you know you are leaving the house to go to the store, and not just wander about in a daze.
Follow through (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with well intended programs is that most of them have a lack of follow through in their chain of events.
I recall when early in my career I worked in a fair size office building that had a cafeteria on the premises. In the cafeteria you were presented with an assortments of recycling options where you could recycle everything from organic waste to making sure that green glass was separated from brown.
When I worked the first shift I would watch as everyone dutifully separated everything just so to make sure they were being good for the environment. I was then transferred to second shift after a while at which point I noticed that every single evening the janitor took every single bin and dumped them all into the same garbage dolly.
The same thing happens with many recycling programs where the materials are simply shipped to Africa or China. They are then disassembled by hand as they value the money more than the computer, often by small kids and certainly without any kind of environmental controls. In order to put an end to e-waste you really have to start forcing in country recycling programs where the materials are completely broken down.
Re:England (Score:3, Insightful)
It is obvious to anyone with an education that hundreds of millions of plastic bags that will never rot is a bad thing.
You cannot wait for companies who are interested only in their own profits. They will not change.
Re:United States (Score:4, Insightful)
3. Generic bags. Lets not use them as as an advertising platform. you want bags that you can use tastefully at any store.
I never had any problem pulling out a bag of a competing supermarket out of my pocket at checkout. Or a bag with father Christmas on it in the middle of the summer. Who the hell cares? Grow a skin!
Re:England (Score:3, Insightful)
Having to carry around bags just incase you might want to use them is a fairly significant inconvenience. Also while the thin free ones are easier to carry, they are also more easily damaged.
Plastic bags also have other uses, for instance i use them as rubbish bags and when they're full tie them up and put them into a larger bin outside. Compared to full size garbage bags, smaller bags occupy less space in the house, and fill up quicker so they have less time to start to smell.
On the other hand, packaging in stores is getting far more annoying than it was years ago...
If i go shopping in the car i would prefer to use boxes than plastic bags. Supermarkets used to have a pile of empty boxes near the tills that you could put your shopping in, and boxes slide into the back of a car much more easily and don't tip over spilling their contents. Stores get their stock delivered in boxes, and any given supermarket will be discarding hundreds of empty boxes every day.
And then the actual packaging on goods is often excessive, which then means it needs more bags/boxes to put it in... And don't even get me started on blister packaging, that should be banned.
Where's the problem (Score:2, Insightful)
When I read of European environmental concerns, I'm struck by the immaturity and irrationality of it and proposed solutions. It's a waste of time and effort. How about finding ways to make peoples' lives better instead?