Plastic bag campaign - one question

[martin84]

http://news.sky.com/story/967454/call-for-levy-to-...

I'm not usually interested in a futile campaign on a tiny issue from an organisation I've never heard of and usually I wouldn't dream of wasting PH'ers time with something so daft.

However much of the reasoning behind bag restrictions stems from how it supposedly gets in the sea and kills the fishes.

Now....how do I put this.....I don't throw my bags in the sea so why should I have to pay for it?

Do you throw your bags in the sea? Step forward everyone here who throws their carrier bags in the sea.

[martin84]

Lost_BMW said:

But, I was even more staggered when buying the family tea at McDonalds - a bunch of stuff ordered at the Drive Thru and then I was asked did I want a bag? What, how the hell else was I supposed to carry it back without depositing stuff all over the car? So I had to pay extra for a paper bag, paper! Noticed on the read out it said "Welsh Assembly bag charge" or similar. Now that is OTT and taking the piss.

See now that's just pathetic and another example of why Government shouldn't get involved in this sort of thing. We all used to use paper bags years ago before someone decided we should switch to plastic to save cutting down the trees, now they're encouraging to switch to paper again like the Americans use. Paper is biodegradable, there's no need for a charge to be on that. The point of the levy was to discourage plastic bag use, not just charge for every means of carrying multiple items with one hand. It's window tax for the 21st century.

There's laws around bags already, even in Wales they legally have to give you a free bag if you're buying fresh meat or prescriptions. I too am concerned at the reported tonnes of plastic which ends up in the sea but the fact is I don't put it in the sea, so I shouldn't have to pay for it. Somewhere after it leaving my house in a bin (paid for by council tax) it ends up in the sea, so somebody else has to put it there.

Maybe if when I order online from Sainsbury's they didn't use an entire bag just for one tub of margerine (yes, they do) then less bags would go to waste. Another reason to not charge is we're already advertising for the company by carrying their bag around anyway.

[martin84]

It's not an absurd position at all. Comparing tax to fund universal healthcare is different to a penalising charge for something you don't cause. The charge is to stop the bag getting into the sea/countryside/etc and harming all the lovely fluffy/slippery animals. I don't throw it in the sea so therefore I don't cause the damage. So why should I pay for the damage?

If my neighbour sets fire to a playing field do I have to pay a field levy?

[martin84]

Ahhh if we use paper bags they'll complain we're cutting down too many trees. They want us to use magic ones.

I've got some of those hessian bags, they're brilliant but I do sometimes leave them in the car and forget to take them in the shop. The main culprit in my life is Sainsburys who use more bags than is required in their online shopping.

[martin84]

johnfm said:

How is 'I don't cause the cleanup cost you want me to contribute to' and different to

'I don't use the services you want me to contribute to'?

There is a stronger argument for a bag levy - in that at least you get a direct benefit of cleaner beaches/countryside, even though you don't contribute to the problem. There is a return for your levy.

I get NO benefit from the NHS curing OTHER people or educating other people's children at my expense - (save the long term, incalculable benefits of society being healthier and educated.)

But what if this bag levy was to actually result in nobody using a bag. Aren't they just going to find another way of making a few quid? A levy on whatever we use instead? Trolley levy?

[martin84]

johnfm said:

FAOD, I am also against some arbitrary new tax - I just take a contrarian view to you reasoning.

If I said there was no air on the moon you'd argue there was.

[martin84]

Oakey said:

you mean to say you don't spend an evening with the family flushing plastic carrier bags down the toilet?

Didn't have time this evening as I was too busy pouring brake fluid down the drain.

[martin84]

BoRED S2upid said:

As a Welsh resident who was agsint the bag tax like everyone else, 12 months on and you don't even think about it you just buy one or take your own when you can remember. It will be coming to England very soon believe me. As will I when I move there in October.

I thought the Conservative's were meant to put an end to needless Government interfearence in things which don't matter? I expect it in communist Wales but deary me.