Lewis Smith, The Times 1 Mar 08;
What is the scale of the problem?
An estimated 12.4 billion plastic bags were handed out at checkouts last year in the stores of 21 retail groups in Britain, including supermarkets. Each bag was used, on average, for only 20 minutes before being discarded. Many billions more were given away by thousands of other stores and businesses.
Plastic bags are estimated to take 1,000 years or more to degrade, meaning that unless they are disposed of properly they form long-lasting litter.
What’s wrong with plastic?
Simple unsightliness is one of the main complaints against plastic bags. Because they take so long to break down they remain in the environment for much longer than most other materials and blow around making a mess of the landscape.
Plastic litter can be lethal to wildlife, either because animals swallow it or because they get irretrievably tangled up in it. Rare turtles mistake bags for jellyfish and many more types of animal are put at risk. In 2005 WWF calculated that almost 200 species of marine creatures were affected, including whales, seals and dolphins.
More than a million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals are estimated by the United Nations Environmental Programme (Unep) to be killed annually by plastic in the seas. It has calculated that 46,000 pieces of plastic, many of them bags, are swirling about each square mile of the oceans. A vortex of plastic has been found covering huge swaths of the Pacific Ocean from about 500 miles (800km) west of California almost as far as Japan.
Are they all bad?
They wouldn’t have become everyday items if they didn’t have their uses. Plastic has proved to be a strong, lightweight and convenient material that has permeated the whole of society. They’re not just available at the tills. Smaller plastic bags are found in the fruit and veg sections of supermarkets and bakery areas. Companies use them to bag up promotional giveaways, and in the home they are used to line bins and to wrap up dirty nappies.
What are other countries doing?
China, for once winning the approval of environmental groups such as Greenpeace, has announced that from June 1 all shops are to stop providing free bags, while production of ultra-thin bags was banned.
Several other countries have taken action. In Germany shoppers have long expected to pay for any plastic bags they use and they tend to bring their own when out shopping. Similarly, charging for bags has taken place in Sweden for a decade. Charging was made compulsory in supermarkets in the Irish Republic in 2002 and the number of plastic bags taken at the tills plummeted by 90 per cent. However, plastic bin liner sales promptly soared by an estimated 400 per cent. A plan by France to ban shops from giving out any plastic bag that is not made of biodegradable materials is due to come into force in 2010, but could be blocked by European law for violating free-trade principles.
What is the UK Government doing?
Gordon Brown said this week that he was considering using legislation to force the hand of supermarket chains and other retailers. The threat of compulsion is the latest move by the Government on the issue of single-use bags. It went public with its concerns last May.
Mr Brown’s announcement tied in with a campaign by the Daily Mail to ban free plastic carrier bags, but it remained unclear yesterday how much of a role No 10 may have had behind the scenes in prompting the newspaper, edited by Paul Dacre, who has notably friendly relations with the Prime Minister, to run the campaign.
Even after making the threat of compulsion, the Government maintained its position of wanting to encourage the reduction in plastic bag use rather than take legislative action.
What does the UK Government want?
On the face of it the aim is to rid Britain of single-use bags, whether plastic or paper. They are seen as a waste of resources.
In the long term, the Government hopes to have an impact on the throwaway culture. Reducing packaging is another aspect of society’s wastefulness that ministers would like to curb. More distant goals would be to make equipment such as fridges and music centres last much longer. A change in mindset to make single-use products socially unacceptable is the eventual hope.
What are the alternatives to plastic?
Long-life bags are already on offer. They are plastic but last much longer than the free bags so can be used repeatedly — as long as shoppers remember to take them with them.
Biodegradable bags are another form of plastic. Some are derived largely from fossil fuel waste products and their lifespan can be pre-programmed.
Others are derived from plants. In the open air they will degrade into microscopic fragments but when trapped in oxygen-less conditions, such as when buried deep in landfill sites, decomposition will stop.
Paper bags would be frowned upon by environmentalists because they take up more energy to make and transport than plastic. Fabric bags, whether jute, hemp or cotton, would all be expected to last years but there are doubts over the energy required to make them and fears that increased production of plants for their manufacture would reduce the quantity of agricultural land for food.
What is the best solution?
In short, no one knows for sure. Each interest group will argue its corner but too little is known about the total environmental impact of each type of bag. How do you balance, for instance, the damage to wildlife by plastic bags with the loss of food crops to the human population by growing hemp? What is the impact that each has on climate change?
One of the main reasons why the Government hasn’t introduced legislation already is that it is not sure what the practical alternatives are to plastic bags. Each has obvious pros and cons, but a comprehensive understanding remains elusive.
Wouldn’t charging for bags simply be a new tax in disguise?
Part of the reason for the Government having refused to take action to force customers to buy plastic bags rather than take them gratis is the fear charging will simply be seen as a green tax. Such charges are unlikely to be direct taxes and retailers are expected to put the money towards environmental causes rather than pocket it. However, any compulsory measures that force up the cost of the shop will inevitably be seen by many voters as a tax.
