It’s time to tax plastic bags

2:19pm Thursday 24th April 2008

Comments (4)   Have your say »

I appreciate where Coun Ruth Potter is coming from with a petition to "ban plastic bags" (Ban the bag plea, The Press, April 21).

Too many plastic bags are used and discarded, causing litter and possible problems for wildlife.

But is banning them the answer? Does this petition ask to ban the wholesale of them to shops, the giving out of free plastic bags, their manufacture, or their possession?

When did banning anything solve the problem? Think speeding, illegal drugs, foxhunting... all "not allowed", but still happening.

Although far too many people take free plastic bags, use them once and throw them away, they take up a tiny fraction of landfill and use relatively few fossil-fuel resources compared with heating and powering houses, cars, fashion, gadgets, high-embodied-carbon food and foreign travel.

Far better to tax bags. A consumer cost of 15 pence reduced their use by 80 per cent in Ireland and reduced litter. A major supermarket's recent "bags for life" campaign was very successful. Now many more shoppers are using these durable, reusable (often plastic) bags.

Reusable bags combat global warming, but the effect is meaningless if you buy and put in meat, trinkets with no practical use, the latest electronic gadget, or if you fly with it. To seriously cut your carbon footprint, insulate your house, switch electricity to a renewables tariff, go vegetarian or vegan, scrap your car... even just don't drive one day a week!

I find plastic carrier bags very useful to wrap things I want to stay dry in my cycle panniers and to store and transport finished compost. I would pay for bags, but would be stumped were they banned. I'm happy Ruth Potter et al have added to the debate and raised awareness, but I'll continue using and reusing plastic bags for some time.

John Cossham, Hull Road, York.