This is not my...Debate
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There is a lot of information on the site this week about plastic bags and how we can use fewer of them. But what do you think?
Should we impose a plastic bag tax in England and Wales? |
Have your say. Click here
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Your Comments...
Refuse and Reuse
Time to cut the crap
Plastic bags cause problems in the UK due to their environmental impact and needless drain on resources. The amount of petrol used to make on plastic bag would drive a car 115 metres.
It is estimated that UK consumption of plastic checkout bags at 17.5 billion per year, enough in energy terms to drive a car 2.1 billion miles.
Only one bag every 200 is recycled, the other 199 can take up to 1000 years to degrade.
It is also known that plastic, as a whole, is responsible for the deaths of one million sea birds and 100,000 mammals each year.
Plastic bags already have bans, taxes, government levies and voluntary codes of practice in Australia, South Africa, Taiwan, India, Ireland, Denmark, Italy, China, Bangladesh, China, Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan with France also aiming to ban them by 2010.
Retailers have to stop giving them away.
Please: Refuse plastic bags, Reuse Cotton carry bags.
- Caitlin
Plastic Bags
At last, surely one thing we can all agree about - unless one is a plastic bag manufacturer of course - yes, definately, make people pay or start knitting those string bags now.
Incidentally, when IKEA first started in the uk they made a big thing of being ecologically sound by using only paper bags - they were wonderful, you could store potatoes in them for ages.
Anyhow, slowly but surely they stopped the paper and returned to plastic, bet it's still paper in Sweden tho.
- Flat Earther
To think, the plastic bag can cause such angst!
Looking back from my position in the age ladder way up above you both, in fact sadly above the combined total of your years plus months (not much more actually!), I must protest.
I am not sure where the plastic bag issue comes from but it is a pet peeve of my own.
What a waste! I know we all probably use them again to dispose of small amounts of unrecylable rubbish but still, they take years to break down, in fact, how many years? This is a fact we should all take to heart.
What is wrong with the shopping bag, who remembers string bags, wicker baskets? So much more appealing than the plastic sack.
In Canada you have a choice of plastic or paper, let’s hope that most people choose the latter if they cannot take their own with them.
A sweet young Mexican friend taught me, a couple of years ago, how to fold a plastic supermarket bag into a small triangle. (I am quite certain the nuns at a convent school must have taught her this art, they are so good at such things) She assured me this made the bag more environmentally friendly.
I questioned the logic but went along with it. And sure enough, I make my triangles all the time and it does save bags, it’s so easy to pop a few of them into your handbag or pocket for that very rare occasion when you are caught out without the wicker or the dog decides he can’t wait any longer as you walk along a crowded high street.
To finish, on the subject of cost, Lidl charges 3p for a simple plastic bag, considerably more for an upmarket one. I think all supermarkets should at least do this, surely people would start to reassess.
And I do hear that it is possible to cut up these bags and knit or weave them into fantastic garments. Perhaps you should create a competition to do this for your dress-up day!
- Spicketts
