Marks & Spencer has announced that it will charge 5p for plastic carrier bags at their stores nationwide http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7268283.stm This follows on from a series of trial schemes at M&S stores where the bag charge has been introduced.
Many of the major retail companies signed up “to adopt a shared objective with the government and WRAP to reduce the environmental impact of carrier bags by 25% by 2008”. Other retailers have tried to meet this target by changing the materials bags are made from, offering bags for life and giving loyalty card points for reusing bags. If this new initiative has a similar impact to the plastic bag tax in Ireland it will significantly reduce the number of bags that M&S uses – possibly by around 90%.
Experience from the Republic of Ireland shows that their Plastic Bag Tax did have a dramatic reduction in the number of plastic bags used per person – bag usage fell from 328 bags per person prior to the tax to 21 bags after the tax. However, opponents claim that the number of plastic sacks purchased for refuse disposal has increased since the tax was introduced.
The indications are that M&S will achieve a large cut in plastic bag use – especially in their food areas. It will be interesting to see if the other major grocery retailers follow suit.
What percentage of the waste stream is made up of plastic bags?
In overall household waste management and disposal terms plastic bags are largely irrelevant as they only represent a very small percentage of the overall waste stream. However, they are a problem as litter. Visit any landfill site after rough weather and you will see trees and hedgerows littered with plastic bags for miles around.
A waste analysis of household waste in Cheshire in 2000 showed that around 2.8% of the waste in the area was made up of plastic film - (www.cheshire.gov.uk/waste/Downloads/Household_Waste_Composition.htm). Plastic bags would only make up a fraction of the total amount of plastic film.
The Scottish Parliament examined the possibility of introducing a plastic bag levy of 10p per bag. However, after studying various Life Cycle Assessments for plastic bags it was decided that a voluntary code with retailers to reduce the impact of plastic would be the best way forward. Similar codes are used in Australia and New Zealand.
One interesting option is the Danish system where the plastic bag levy is paid be the retailer for each bag they distribute. This system provides a clear incentive to retailers to reduce the number of bags they give out.
You can read more about policy responses to the issue of plastic bags in the ‘Bioplastics –Degradable, Renewable, Compostable’ report, which is available on the Resource Efficiency Knowledge Transfer Network at www.resource-efficiency.org
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Indeed, the Irish plastic bags levy is changing (actually has changed) consumer's behaviour of using plastic bag after the tax-more than 6 times higher than the average maximum WTP (willingness to pay); also, when plastic bags are left as litter, it matters more how worse it appears to the envirnoment--accumulation of wasted bags on shrubs and hedges in ireland-a country of hedgerows, rather than how worse it actually is to the enviornment.
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