Iain Dale says "Here's a Green Idea: Why Not Ban Plastic Bags?"
I have recently been to a country where they have... actually banned plastic bags altogether. It's for tidiness reasons rather than anything else, but it does seem to work. The country? Rwanda. The women tend to carry things on their heads, which might be a little much for the good burghers of Chipping Sodbury, but if you go to a supermarket by car why do you need bags when you can just place things in your boot? Also, you can take your own bags with you if you are not going by car. So, apart from the fact that as a rule I don't like banning things, why shouldn't we ban plastic bags?
In reply I'm just going to pretty much repeat the arguments of a post I wrote on this issue before.Should we have to pay to use plastic bags from a supermarket? Should we bollocks. Plastic bags are the last thing made of old recycled plastic. It usually isn't of good enough quality to be used for anything else - plastic bags is the end of the life of the plastic.
Providing incentives for re-using and/or recycling plastic bags is a good idea. But also one that is already pretty much in use in many supermarkets, though not to as large an extent as it could be. Banning them is never going to work, and really works against the green principle in the end. Plastic bags are used by many people for many things - bin-liners and the like - and thus many do get re-used. The plastic used to make plastic bags is at the end of it's lifespan. It cannot be used for making anything else any more, so they make bags from it - and plastic bags can only be made into other plastic bags.
Rather than penalising those who want to use the plastic bags to carry their shopping, reward those who re-use and recycle them at the shop. The carrot and not the stick is far more useful in this case. It is more the other plastic waste that needs to be reduced rather than plastic bags, so that we don't end up with so much plastic that is only fit to become plastic bags.
