5p charge for plastic bags from October 2015 to cut usage

[Not-The-Messiah]

petemurphy said:

Coop bags are biodegradable so why can’t they all do that or have paper bags or leave boxes out

I'm pretty sure all the big supermarket bag were biodegradable, just leave them in a cupboard for a year or so.

It was just your usual small minded do-gooders who love trying to control people seeing a issue without really thinking about it.

[DanL]

Not-The-Messiah said:

BBC News - Plastic waste rises as 1.5bn 'bags for life' sold, research finds
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-50579077

Doesn't seemed to have gone to plan what a shock.

All that's going to happen now is it's going to be £1 a bag or they will be band all together.

Not sure that £1/bag will be enough to deter people for a weekly shop - £5 is much more the “do you really want this?” level of spend...

[borcy]

MikeyC said:

Did I hear headline on radio this morning: 'Average house has 50+ Bags-for-Life' ?
<edit> found the keypoint: households bought an average of 54 a year.

Pretty shocking if true !

I think I have 1 which was given to me, but have never used it - I still re-use my 10+ so-called 'one use bags' - go figure !

edit: was annoyed when the MOT garage threw some of them out when washing my car

Edited by MikeyC on Thursday 28th November 09:33

Edited by MikeyC on Thursday 28th November 09:53

54 is crazy, obviously they are still too cheap. I wonder if that figure is right?
If it make it a couple of quid a bag, the government would have to do it no supermarket would go first on their own.

[rdjohn]

We bought some decent bags for life - probably £2-3 each, and have not needed a replacement in 4, or 5 years.

So I also am stunned by the 54bags/year figure. If you can’t plan the simple things that you need to go shopping, how the heck can you cope with the big things that need planning in your life?

[MikeyC]

borcy said:

54 is crazy, obviously they are still too cheap. I wonder if that figure is right?

Difficult to know, it may come up on BBC's Podcast 'More-or-Less', they often look into these types of stats/claims if somebody prompts them

It's approximately 1 a week - the weekly shop maybe ?

I agree, make them more expensive !

[dai1983]

Zirconia said:

Meanwhile, if I try to buy anything fresh from the supermarket, it is mostly encased in plastic and cheaper to buy the same produce encased over the loose (the few items as such as they deem they will put out).

Fortunately the local market is all loose produce.

Loose fruit and veg is considerably cheaper and loads nicer than the pre packaged stuff.

Have about 10 bags for life that we’ve acquired and can’t remember that last time I bought one. I’ve only ever thrown one away since they came in. Even that was down to me putting something sharp in there!

Local recycling company doesn’t take certain things such as juice cartons and plastic containers like the ones strawberries come in. That boils my piss as we’d have hardly any black bin bag stuff otherwise.

[Randy Winkman]

Not-The-Messiah said:

petemurphy said:

Coop bags are biodegradable so why can’t they all do that or have paper bags or leave boxes out

I'm pretty sure all the big supermarket bag were biodegradable, just leave them in a cupboard for a year or so.

It was just your usual small minded do-gooders who love trying to control people seeing a issue without really thinking about it.

What would be the point of them being biodegradable? Where would they biodegrade and how do you both see that helping?

[MikeyC]

Randy Winkman said:

What would be the point of them being biodegradable? Where would they biodegrade and how do you both see that helping?

They're compostible - that (m)any households have a compost is open for debate !
A cursory scan through media doesn't explain how they de-compose or how long before it starts, but this info from BBiA Association on them is some PR stuff on them
Presumably even if they go to landfill, then maybe not such a problem - food for plants (?)
Still, I would still prefer to see people to re-use them (but hey!, why change the habit of a lifetime!)

The old Tesco ones did use to degrade into small little bits (maybe caused by exposure to UV light) which was a PiTA and not a good idea

[Not-The-Messiah]

borcy said:

MikeyC said:

Did I hear headline on radio this morning: 'Average house has 50+ Bags-for-Life' ?
<edit> found the keypoint: households bought an average of 54 a year.

Pretty shocking if true !

I think I have 1 which was given to me, but have never used it - I still re-use my 10+ so-called 'one use bags' - go figure !

edit: was annoyed when the MOT garage threw some of them out when washing my car

Edited by MikeyC on Thursday 28th November 09:33

Edited by MikeyC on Thursday 28th November 09:53

54 is crazy, obviously they are still too cheap. I wonder if that figure is right?
If it make it a couple of quid a bag, the government would have to do it no supermarket would go first on their own.

I buy 3-4 every week I've got a bag full of them at home so now they just go straight in the bin.

1.9 billion a year at 10p each that £190 million a year. You need to think if that money is used for things like cleaning up discarded rubbish, research into new cleaner materials, environmental initiatives and so on. It is probably a net benefit selling so many bags in the grand scheme of things if the money is used in such away. Are these bags that harmful to the environment, do the negatives out way the positives?

[MikeyC]

Maybe a bit O/T, but...

What if a car manufacturer designed a shopping trolley that slotted into the car boot somehow ?
Could be made of hard durable plastic & the wheels would obviously have to fold away somehow, but it's hardly rocket science!

You could just drive up, take trolley out (locking wheels etc), go around shop, and then take it all back to the car
Not all cars would be suitable, but it would be a start

I'm sure this can't be an original idea !

[technodup]

rdjohn said:

So I also am stunned by the 54bags/year figure. If you can’t plan the simple things that you need to go shopping, how the heck can you cope with the big things that need planning in your life?

It comes as no surprise to me. Lidl and Aldi always charged, so paying for bags is now a thing, so a bag a week is nothing.

People just don't care enough to inconvenience themselves over it. When I started smoking fags were <£2 a packet, now they're £10. I chucked it at about £8, but people still smoke. Bags will be the same process, until someone (almost certainly not the government) comes up with a better solution.

[kev1974]

Yet again picking on the easy target of plastic bags.

Totally ignoring that multiple studies have shown that cotton bags are actually WORSE for the environment than reusable plastic.
https://qz.com/1585027/when-it-comes-to-climate-ch...

And also doing nothing about far greater environmental catastrophes such as disposable nappies. The typical baby will cause 4000-6000 of them to fill up landfill. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45732371

[stevensdrs]

Charging 5p for disposable bags does not change substantially the amount of plastic that goes to landfill. For instance, we used to take the free bags and then use them as pedal bin liners before they went in the bin. Now we buy pedal bin liners. Net result is no difference to the amount of plastic in the bin but an increase in money paid out.
Now we use bags for life as I imagine many others do for the shopping. Not the cheap plastic ones but the more substantial cloth and plastic mixed ones. These last about 100 shopping trips before they need to be discarded. A Greenpeace spokesperson was trying to make out today that these are now a problem because they take longer to biodegrade and that lots are being sold. Well of course more are being sold as there is a market to satisfy of people who never used them before now buying them. It really doesn't matter what receptacle for shopping people use as at some time it will have to be discarded.

[Butter Face]

The Aldi compostable carrier bags are a nice touch, a little bit weaker than normal plastic ones but they solve a problem in a better way IMO.

[kev1974]

Butter Face said:

The Aldi compostable carrier bags are a nice touch, a little bit weaker than normal plastic ones but they solve a problem in a better way IMO.

An absolute nightmare if you forget one in the back of the kitchen drawer or put something away in the wardrobe in one, and find it a year later and find tens of thousands of tiny shreds of plastic in its place though!

[kev1974]

stevensdrs said:

A Greenpeace spokesperson was trying to make out today that these are now a problem because they take longer to biodegrade and that lots are being sold. Well of course more are being sold as there is a market to satisfy of people who never used them before now buying them. It really doesn't matter what receptacle for shopping people use as at some time it will have to be discarded.

Unfortunately this is par for the course for so many "eco initiatives". So often these knee-jerk policies are not properly throught through and have don't have comprehensive review of the possible consequences.

[Shakermaker]

MikeyC said:

Maybe a bit O/T, but...

What if a car manufacturer designed a shopping trolley that slotted into the car boot somehow ?
Could be made of hard durable plastic & the wheels would obviously have to fold away somehow, but it's hardly rocket science!

You could just drive up, take trolley out (locking wheels etc), go around shop, and then take it all back to the car
Not all cars would be suitable, but it would be a start

I'm sure this can't be an original idea !

It isn't

Citroen Picasso had it in the 90s, albeit in this guise it was the size of what I would call a "granny trolley" but my mum loved it on hers back in day. It was probably the best thing about that car

[FiF]

MikeyC said:

Maybe a bit O/T, but...

What if a car manufacturer designed a shopping trolley that slotted into the car boot somehow ?
Could be made of hard durable plastic & the wheels would obviously have to fold away somehow, but it's hardly rocket science!

You could just drive up, take trolley out (locking wheels etc), go around shop, and then take it all back to the car
Not all cars would be suitable, but it would be a start

I'm sure this can't be an original idea !

When we were students we had exactly that arrangement. Whoever's turn it was to do the weekly big shop would fire up the trusty house Moggy Minor van, drive to Sainsbury's, take out wheeled shopping implement, go round store filling it with various comestibles, having paid return to van, load wheeled implement into back, sod off home, unpack. Very time efficient.

It was an interesting design, something very similar to these...

[MikeyC]

FiF said:

It was an interesting design, something very similar to these...

Ha Ha - I take your point !

[The Mad Monk]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Pardon?