|
Britain follows Ireland’s lead over recycling  When
it came to banishing the eco-unfriendly plastic bag Ireland paved the
way and now almost six years later Britain is finally following the Emerald
Isle’s green lead.
Last week High Street giant Marks and Spencer was the first major British
store to announce that it is to start charging customers for plastic bags.
The popular chain will now start charging shoppers 5p for every plastic
bag they use.
The move will come in to force in May following trials in the North of
Ireland, which saw demand for polythene bags fall by more than 70 per
cent.
Since the tax was introduced in Ireland in March 2002 there has been a
90 per cent drop in the use of plastic bags.
M&S chief executive Sir Stuart Rose said if initial figures are anything
to go by the new move could reduce the number of bags used by 280million
each year.
He said: “We want to make it easy for our customers to do their
bit to help the environment and our trials have shown us that they want
to take action.
“Just imagine if M&S customers right across Britain cut the
number of food bags they use by 70 per cent — that’s over
280million bags they’d be saving every year.”
For many years campaigners have been calling for something to be done
to save the thousands of animals and birds that are killed unnecessarily
each year.
And money raised from the levy on bags will be spent on improving parks
and green spaces around the country.
Other retailers do offer green bag schemes where you can purchase a reusable
bag but none are yet committed to charging shoppers for taking a plastic
bag.
Tesco introduced their reusable Bag for Life in 1996.
The bag costs 10p and is replaced free of charge whenever it wears out.
Tesco also have a Green Bag Scheme, which gives customers a Green Clubcard
Point worth between 1 and 4p for every bag they bring themselves to carry
their shopping.
And Sainsbury’s maintain their strategy to decrease the use of free
bags in favour of reusable ones is working.
A spokesperson said: “Since April 2007 the use of free, throwaway
bags has declined by 10 per cent — equivalent to 85million bags
— and the number of reusable carrier bags has risen by nearly 50
per cent.
“We have now given away 15million reusable bags to customers though
our unique Make the Difference Days.
“We are also fully signed up to the Courtauld Commitment and committed
to a 25 per cent reduction on the environmental impact of carrier bags.
We are on target to do this.”
Asda is also working to find the best ways to encourage their customers
to opt for reusable bags.
And a key plank to their approach is to remove carrier bags from the customer-packing
end of the checkout, placing them under the control of the cashier instead.
Every Asda store also has a recycling bin for carrier bags at the front
of the store, which has already been responsible for 133 tonnes of plastic
being recycled.
But on the whole Britain is still lagging behind when it comes to plastic
poison.
Some 13billion plastic bags are given free to British shoppers every year.
And they take an estimated 1,000 years to decay, clogging up landfill
sites and putting pressure on the environment.
In Ireland reusable cloth bags have become the norm with many people
keeping them in handbags, offices and the back of cars.
Bag basics
- The majority of our bags come from China, India, Thailand and Malaysia.
- For every one of us, 216 plastic bags a year are handed out.
- A typical free supermarket bag is used for an average of 20 minutes
before it is thrown away.
- More than 98 per cent of them end up in landfill. |
