So, is the 5p tax the Government has just slapped on plastic shopping bags the right way to go about “saving the environment”? Or with a little more thought, could they have avoided the law of unintended consequences?
It’s true that over 7 billion bags are apparently handed out annually to supermarket customers in Britain, and that’s 7 billion a year which potentially litter the roads and the countryside and clog the seas, not only creating an eyesore but also a possible danger to animals and fish and even to agriculture. Researchers fear that these omnipresent bags may never fully decompose but instead gradually turn into smaller and smaller pieces of plastic that even microorganisms won’t recognise as food and so cannot technically ‘biodegrade’.
On the other hand, plastic shopping bags are very useful. They avoid dry foods from touching each other and liquids from leaking. They are often used more than once for many things, perhaps for shopping again, perhaps as a kit bag to bring wet clothes home from the gym, for packed lunches, to dispose of cat litter or, more often as bin liners. So if the shops don’t hand out plastic shopping bags, then others will have to be bought in their place — in Wales when the 5p scheme was first rolled out, the sale of bin liners increased by 250% — and as these will eventually be disposed of one way or another, there will be no environmental saving.
That’s one of the laws of “unintended consequences”.
Another is the fact that plastic bags are basically made from Naphthalene (or Naptha), part of the petroleum refining industry, which is otherwise completely useless and would have to be burned off during refinement. This would add a little more CO2 to the atmosphere and in spite of the fact that it would simply make more plants grow, the environmentalists positively hate it. They have the idea that CO2 would only burn up the planet.
So, would it be “greener” to replace plastic bags with paper ones? That may look, at first glance, to be the case. But to begin with, it rains quite a bit in Britain, and paper bags or sacks might well disintegrate before getting home with the supper. And in any case, paper means cutting down more trees, and aren’t we encouraged to avoid overusing paper in order to save the trees?
But given a little thought, there could well be an environmentally sound answer to the plastic bag problem.
Many companies, both here and abroad, are now researching the development of biodegradable plastics to make anything from plain old shopping bags to containers for the growing of crops. These are plastics which decompose by the action of living organisms, usually bacteria. The material commences breakdown once discarded into the environment and rapidly breaks down into biodigestable constituents, and at this point the material is no longer a littering hazard. Nor would it create a danger for nature. Then, if in a suitable environment, the material will biodegrade to leave water, biomass — and CO2.
This, of course, won’t please everyone but then, in this life you can’t have everything, no matter what the environmentalists think!
Ah, several issues raised that I hadn’t thought of but, I’m not sure one can call it a tax if the supermarkets keep the money for themselves. I though, am quite happy to take the canvas bags to the shops as it sort of feels right.
The one other major issue that the 5p charge has raised is that potentially every customer could face prosecution for theft, if they don’t pay it. The rules for complying with the 5p charge can be quite confusing. You might guess wrong in your judgement that you’re entitled to a free bag for the groceries you’ve bought and get stopped by security for non-payment. What happens next?
Supermarkets have a history of taking shoplifters to court even for items thrown away in the trash. Supposedly worthless items they can’t sell, companies like Tesco’s and Sainsbury’s will prosecute, to make examples out of.
What happens then if you stick to your guns you think you have done no wrong and refuse to pay the fine? If you plead guilty you will have a criminal record for life, even if it’s just for 5p. It will cost you a small fortune to plead not guilty. Would it go as far as the Crown court in such an event for Jury trial? Would a jury convict?
Prison and criminal record for a 5p bag?
If I was on the jury I would find the defendent “not guilty”, but what an ordeal for someone to go through to get that judgement.
I have no idea when it will come, but at some point their will be prosecutions for something that was legal last week.
Yes, and so the increasing Statist infiltration of the citizens of the UK continues.
Couldn’t be down to sense, responsibility or persuasion, it has to be legislation and compulsion.
Always the attitude (of others, of course!!) are irresponsible, uncaring, lacking in sense, anti-community, anti this, anti that.
Plastic bags, if so deadly, could be stopped from being produced, so why aren’t they?
How much of your waste is really reclaimed, recycled, and reused?? Rather than just dumped with the landfill, because it is to expensive or too strategically complicated to organise.
Are the figures accurate for each LA?