The Scottish Government’s drive to introduce a minimum 5p charge for all plastic bags in shops has been described by business leaders and political opposition as ‘a frivolous distraction’.
The Federation of Small Businesses say that the measure is mainly ‘symbolic’ and would only cause problems for firms already struggling in a tough economic climate.
The Scottish Conservatives have previously called on the Scottish Government to drop these plans, which alongside the retail levy and increase in empty commercial properties tax, is seen as putting unnecessary pressure on the small business sector.
They favour an incentive scheme, where shoppers could be rewarded for using their own bags in the form of a 5p discount, should instead be considered, as some retailers are currently doing.
Jamie McGrigor, Highlands and Islands MSP and Scottish Conservative environment spokesman, says: ‘The FSB is quite right on this, it is nothing but a symbolic stunt to appeal to the green agenda.
‘All it will do is add to already increasing weekly shopping bills for consumers and cause unnecessary hassle for businesses who are already facing enough challenges.
‘The SNP should be looking at incentive schemes for shoppers, not trying to hit them in the pocket.
‘We see regularly sets of figures showing just how difficult it is for retailers in the face of such global economic pressures.
‘But all the Scottish Government wants to do is make life even harder for them.’
The extraordinary affection that people in Scotland (and indeed others in Britain) show for plastic bags is difficult for many of us on the continent to understand. Stand in the arrivals hall of any major European airport and it’s easy to discern when a plane from the UK has just arrived. Suddenly the meet and greet area is populated by travellers carrying plastic bags.
Could not plastic bags simply be banned in Scotland?
A small supply of decent cloth bags will last a lifetime. They can be washed from time to time. Every household in Germany has a cupboard full of such bags. They can even be very stylish. In some regions, of course, the use of plastic bags in shops is against the law. Why could it not be so in Scotland?
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A great proportion of supermarket plastic bags are reused for kitchen waste. Very convenient and useful. Since they are biodegradable with a life of 3-6 mths. The bioplastic ones made from cornstarch and other plant based chemicals are an even better bet.
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Good post Nicky.
A 2007 paper examining Ireland’s plastic bag tax asked if it was “the most popular tax in Europe” and said that the response to it had been “overwhelmingly positive”. It said the reason for its popularity is that the reason for it was well understood and the revenues were directed to environmental issues rather than to general revenues.
Am I the only one who finds that the constant mindless knee-jerk opposition from the Scottish Labour and Conservative parties to any and all new legislation brought in or proposed by the SNP government is getting a little wearing?
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I think its a good idea. There is no need for every household to gather 100s over the year. its not too much to ask to reuse/minimise the plastic variety of shopping carriers. Provided the tax goes to where its intended i dont think its a huge problem.
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I AM TOTALLY OPPOSED TO THE USE OF PLASTIC BAGS. BY ALL MEANS GET SHOPS TO CHARGE 5p PER BAG, TO TRY TO RE-EDUCATE EVERYONE HOW WHEN THEY END UP IN A LANDFILL SITE – THERE THEY DO NOT ROT DOWN, EVEN 500 YEARS LATER !! ANYONE NOTICED AS YOU ARE TRAVELLING ALONG THE ROAD, PLASTIC BAGS ARE CLINGING TO BUSHES, HOW UGLY AND MOST IMPORTANTLY – HOW OFTEN ARE OUR WILDLIFE ‘TRAPPED’ BY PLASTIC, IT CAN CAUSE A LONG LINGERING DEATH TO OUR WILDLIFE, I HAVE WITNESSED IT A FEW TIMES, IT IS HORRIFIC ……
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Personal repsonsibility here, chaps. No-one is forced to have one or use one. Just say ‘no’.
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“Personal responsibility here, chaps. No-one is forced to have one or use one. Just say ‘no’.” very well put.
Those who do not want plastic bags to be used should boycott any shops using them, why demand the State to do this for them. Tesco’s would ban them overnight if their revenue stream was hit hard, why have yet another law and more taxation.
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To be fair to Tesco (Oban) staff always ask if you need a bag. They give points if you use your own (sometimes a gentle reminder is required to add the points to the card) and reusable bags of various prices are always available at the checkout.
I believe the responsibility is with consumers.
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The responsibility not to smoke in public places lay with consumers however, it took sensible intervention with new legislation by the SG to come up with what has transpired to be very good law. Lowry, I agree that the reponsibility should lie with the consumers regarding their envionmental responsibility however, unless they are constantly reminded of the ill-effects of helping themselves to two three four bags every time they visit the supermarket I very much doubt whether they will self-police themselves. Maybe as well as Safeway, Tesco, Morrisons etc. printed onto the front of the bags they should have graphic pictures of beauty spots strewn with these bags or dead seagulls with the reminents of a poly bag hanging out of its beak, just regular visual conscience reminders not dissimilar to those now seen on cigarette packets. Personally I would like to see a mix of this as well as a 5p per bag charge and incentives for bringing your own. I do not think a 5p charge on its own is a strong enough deterrent as 10, 15, 25p is easily lost in our ever increasing checkout tally.
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“They (the Conservatives) favour an incentive scheme, where shoppers could be rewarded for using their own bags in the form of a 5p discount, should instead be considered, as some retailers are currently doing.”
And what would be the problem of doing this in conjunction with a 5p tax on usage?
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Personal responsibility in bag use is all very well, but it ain’t working. Despite all the publicity over many years and the ready availability of low-cost ‘bag for life’ schemes etc. the environmental menace that is the disposable plastic bag stubbornly refuses to go away.
I can’t even begin to imagine what the objection to a bag charge is. All it takes is the most minute amount of organisational effort to take a re-usable bag with you when you go shopping. If 5p is all it takes to persuade the 60 to 80% of people in Wales (apparently) to stop using disposable bags then it sounds like an astonishingly simple, cheap and effective measure.
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Ditto.
What exactly is anyone’s objection to a 5p per bag charge?
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A plastic bag charge is a good idea, as are biodegradable cornstarch ‘plastic’ bags – but the idea should be extended beyond shop sales to the vast mail-order / internet sales market, if it’s not to be another little nail in the coffin of the High Street.
And no tricky stuff that enables the likes of Amazon to somehow duck the legislation.
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Plastic is killing our oceans, why are we just talking only about plastic bags.
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It is SNP policy to investigate the introduction of a compulsory refundable deposit on all containers, bottles, cans, can,
Giving these items a value will stop the litter pouts, reduce council refuse collection costs and force suppliers to think about how they package products.
The deposits can be monitored by price coding
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Mythology or facts…. are we not being told something? When everything is added in do the facts change?
Unpublished (as yet) Government research suggests the plastic carrier may not be an eco villain after all – but, whisper it, an unsung hero. Hated by environmentalists and shunned by shoppers, the disposable plastic bag is piling up in a shame-filled corner of retail history. But a draft report by the Environment Agency, obtained by the Independent on Sunday, has found that ordinary high density polythene (HDPE) bags used by shops are actually greener than supposedly low impact choices.
Life Cycle Assessment of Supermarket Carrier Bags, by Dr Chris Edwards and Jonna Meyhoff Fry,
“It found that an HDPE plastic bag would have a baseline global warming potential of 1.57 kg Co2 equivalent, falling to 1.4 kg Co2e if re-used once, the same as a paper bag used four times (1.38 kg Co2e).
A cotton bag would have to be re-used 171 times to emit a similar level, 1.57 kg Co2e.
The researchers concluded: “The HDPE bag had the lowest environmental impacts of the single use options in nine of the 10 impact categories. The bag performed well because it was the lightest single use bag considered.”
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You can read the report HERE.
There is a lengthy section of peer-review comments at the end.
The report is originally from 2006/2007 and only looks at cotton and paper bags as alternatives. It does not appear to consider the current plastic-based ‘bags for life’ and it would be interesting to know how many journeys one of these has to make before it has ‘paid’ for itself in CO2 terms.
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Disposable bags are not primarily a CO2 issue, they are a litter issue.
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To charge shoppers 5p per bag is just another tax on the poor, and yet another example of the niaive thinking of our watermelons.
The real problem is not the ordinary shopper. It is the supermarkets and all their over packaging including plastics bags.
We should follow the example of America (where most people seem to be much more environmentally intelligent than us, despite the global warmimg scare).
American supermarkets use strong paper (biodegradable) bags paid for by the supermarket, not the shopper. Much more sensible.
So ban plastic bags and force supermarkets to provide an environmentally friendly alternative at their cost.
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Agreed – but is it really costing them? – I’ve yet to see a supermarket bag that isn’t advertising the chain loud and clear, and for their customers to sometimes have to pay for the honour of carrying around their advertising is a touch bizarre.
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Re: Comment #12 David Hewitt.
Well said Sir.
Re: Comment # 13 WS
Paper bags are NOT the solution, they are one of the WORST alternatives for our environment.
It’s a pity many contributors, who mean well, haven’t taken time to read the the Scottish Governments ERDC report to which several members of the Irish Government gave testimony to. The Irish were at best found wanting, at worst guilty of being economical with the truth to the extent they were caught out with the questioning and in the end had to admit that the “Plastax” as it’s known in Ireland, had nothing to do with the environment. It was purely a tax to combat litter. Now go and study the figures on the litter in Eire. Whilst you’re at it have a look at the increase in dog fouling, the increase in plastic film imported by way of refuse bags, the increase in packaging in the supermarkets etc. I could go on but it would be far more beneficial to everyone who thinks that by taxing or banning plastic bags that our environment would be better, if they took the time to read and understand the latest independent report carried out by the Environment Agency on behalf of the UK Government (Yes, it’s now been released having been held back for nearly two years) before leaving comments about an issue that is very complex. Or better still, for some fast facts, go to http://www.carrierbagtax.com where they give some true facts, no innuendo or myths such as the contribution from Trigger at #5 which is typical nonsense carried forward for years due to an error in quoting parts of a report from a study carried out some 30 years ago in Newfoundland. Nowhere in that report does it say that a plastic BAG was the cause of death of any animal.
As I said earlier many contributors mean well, but unfortunately the issues are extremely complex and difficult to digest.
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I haven’t read the Newfoundland report, but I clearly recollect hearing that marine animals that feed on jellyfish are dying after consuming plastic bags, and this does seem very believable, given the similar appearance of a thin semi-transparent bag drifting in the sea.
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Due to a 2002 report misinterpreting the original 1987 Canadian Study in Newfoundland claiming that 100,000 marine mammals and birds were killed by ‘plastic debris.’ In a 2002 report commissioned by the Australian Government into the environmental effects of plastic bags, ‘plastic debris’ became ‘plastic bags.’ The report became known as the Nolan-ITU report. In 2006 the report was updated. The same sentence was repeated but ‘bags’ was changed back to ‘debris’ with an explanatory note stating that the original article actually referred to ‘fishing nets.’ The damage to the reputation of the plastic bag was already done.
The report number for the Environment Agency report should you wish to read it is SC030148 and can be found at the web site http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk
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