What should be done about plastic bags?
European Commission • Proposals in the spring designed to reduce the number of plastic bags used in Europe. • Most of the 15,000 people who took part in a public consultation favoured an outright ban. • 800,000 tonnes of single-use plastic bags are used per year in the EU. • More than 4billion are thrown away each year.
Impact • Littering the landscape • Threatening our wildlife • Accumulating as ‘plastic soup’ in the Pacific Ocean, covering more than 15,000,000sq km
Options • • • • •
Complete ban Bag Tax Long life bags Biodegradable bags Paper bags
Complete Ban • Last year Italy became the first country in Europe to ban non-biodegradable plastic bags. • China, South Africa, Kenya, Uganda & Bangladesh have banned very thin plastic bags. • Bangladesh found that plastic bags had clogged up the drainage system, exacerbating deadly floods. • Also banned in Rwanda, Somalia & Tanzania. • UAE are banning all non-biodegradable bags next year. • Lord Henley said that he was “not happy” that the use of carrier bags in the UK had risen by 5% in 2010, after four years of decline and suggested the government might introduce a ban.
Friends of the Earth Alternatives have to be adequately highlighted, people and shopkeepers have enough time to prepare and it does not have a “disproportionate impact on the poor�.
Bag Tax • Eire introduced a charge of 15euro cents (12p) in 2002, this led to 95% reduction in bag litter. Within a year, 90% of shoppers were using long-life bags. • The levy was raised to 22 cents 2007 after evidence showed that the number of bags used annually had risen from 21 per person immediately after the ban to 30 (previously 328). • By this stage, the government had raised 75m Euros (£62m) from the levy, which was put into an environment fund and used to reduce waste or research new ways of recycling. • Belgium, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands are amongst countries following Ireland’s lead. Wales introduced a levy of 5p last year & Northern Ireland will follow next year.
Long life bags Stronger heavier bags, whether made of fabric or plastic, have a bigger environmental impact than standard supermarket shopping bags. To compare carbon footprints: Paper bags would need to be used three times. Plastic bags for life need to be used four times. Cotton bags must be used 131 times.
Biodegradable
The European Commission is considering introducing better ways of labelling biodegradable and compostable bags. Compostable bags only biodegrade in industrial composting plants. Biodegradable bags will biodegrade in the natural environment. Symphony, a British company which manufactures oxo-biodegradable bags, claims they can biodegrade within 6-18 months. Symphony’s chairman, former Conservative MP Michael Stephen, told the BBC: “There is a huge patch of plastic paticles roughly the size of Texas swirling about in the north Pacific. If those bags had been oxo-biodegradable they would have disappeared by now.
Paper Bags • Shopping bag of choice in the US. • UK Environment Agency points out that they have a higher carbon footprint than standard plastic carrier bags. • Not generally reused, either as bin liners or other purposes. • The Plastic Bag Ban Report website says pressure from the “powerful wood pulp industry” is one reason paper bags are used in the US. “A lot of supermarkets are going back to paper bags even though the environmental people say they are as bad as plastic”.