5p for a carrier bag

[Ian H]

Just one cotton picking minute. Supermarkets collect produce from all over the Wold, often grown or create in a less than efficient manner. They then transport it all at great environmental cost to distribution centres. They then belch out more killer particulate pollution delivering it to the stores. Then millions of people create even more pollution by driving their cars to the shop.

Charging 5p a carrier bag to help the environment is like sending Steve McQueen into the Towering Inferno armed only with a glass of eater.

Plastic is a major pollutant. But I don't agree with the argument that small things don't matter. Small changes can have a cumulative effect, and can also encourage people to think in a different way about their environment.

 

[swee'pea99]

Drago makes a good point but taking it further, we seem to just buy stuff that is over packaged and disposable.

Halfords for example used to sell concentrated washer fluid so the 500mil bottle made 20 Litres of fluid. I have one 5litre bottle that has lasted me 10 years by making up my own from concentrate. Now they have stopped selling it and only sell 5 litre bottles that are 95% water (or something like that).
Everyone seems to buy drinks made up in a single use container. Buying bottles of water and fizzy drinks. Then there is the whole culture of just buying cheap crap that then gets thrown away and replaced.
The carrier bag is just the outer layer of a much bigger problem.

All true. One of the good things about the new legislation, though, is not its direct impact - though that will be significant (the Welsh legislation has apparently halved the consumption of bags - that's a lot of plastic) - but the fact that it impinges on peoples' day to day existence in a way that well-meaning messages on the news just don't, keeping environmental issues on peoples' minds, generally. Some will baulk, obviously. But far more others will think twice, every day, not just about carrier bags, but about 'this kind of thing'. Anyway, 'every little helps', yes?

 

[swee'pea99]

Is that a TMN? I think it might be...

 

[swee'pea99]

(As per, mine's just a bit more long-winded...)

 

[Accy cyclist]

About time yon McDonalds started charging for their brown bags! You know, the ones that get dropped by fecking slobs with their contents spewed all over the road.

 

[threebikesmcginty]

Everyone seems to buy drinks made up in a single use container. Buying bottles of water and fizzy drinks. Then there is the whole culture of just buying cheap crap that then gets thrown away and replaced.
The carrier bag is just the outer layer of a much bigger problem.

My cavity wall insulation is made of recycled plastic bottles apparently. I realise that's the least important of The 3 R's but it does show you that it doesn't need to be wasted.

 

[mybike]

I shall investigate. I actually have to go up to Welling today.

Never heard of anyone going up to Welling before. But then I did live there.

Learnt a lot of scientists' names & cycled around a lot of back streets tho'

But wouldn't paper bags get wet in the bin & tear, just like those old paper carrier bags did. Plastic bags were a great advance.

 

[martint235]

Never heard of anyone going up to Welling before. But then I did live there.

Learnt a lot of scientists' names & cycled around a lot of back streets tho'

But wouldn't paper bags get wet in the bin & tear, just like those old paper carrier bags did. Plastic bags were a great advance.

Depends what you put in them. They are sold as being food bin liners so they occasionally get damp with a coffee filter or teabags etc but not to the point of failure.

Now to find out who Professor Bellegrove was .....

 

[theclaud]

Just one cotton picking minute. Supermarkets collect produce from all over the Wold, often grown or create in a less than efficient manner. They then transport it all at great environmental cost to distribution centres. They then belch out more killer particulate pollution delivering it to the stores. Then millions of people create even more pollution by driving their cars to the shop.

Charging 5p a carrier bag to help the environment is like sending Steve McQueen into the Towering Inferno armed only with a glass of eater.

It's an illustration of how, with the political will, it can be very simple to change people's behaviour on a large scale. Instead of carping about how it's a drop in the ocean, we need to apply the same principle much more widely.

 

[mybike]

Depends what you put in them. They are sold as being food bin liners so they occasionally get damp with a coffee filter or teabags etc but not to the point of failure.

Now to find out who Professor Bellegrove was .....

It was the estate I lived on, bounded by Bellegrove Rd, Westwood Lane & Hook Lane (where the primary school originally was)

 

[Crackle]

In that France they don't have plastic bags in supermarkets, take your own or tough titty. Typical French but I guess you only turn up without bags the once.

Still, those Carrefour bags are quite nice quality.

 

[martint235]

It was the estate I lived on, bounded by Bellegrove Rd, Westwood Lane & Hook Lane (where the primary school originally was)

Primary school is still there. I was being facetious. You mean Faraday, Kelvin et al. Walk through there often.

 

[Drago]

It's an illustration of how, with the political will, it can be very simple to change people's behaviour on a large scale. Instead of carping about how it's a drop in the ocean, we need to apply the same principle much more widely.

Rubbish. Small things add up to little. Major action is required, but both business and government seem reluctant to grip the problem.

A little bit here, a little bit there, hasn't worked when solving the environmental crisis at any point over the last 3 decades. It took major action co-ordinated internationally to address the ozone problem - the near instant wholesale banning of CFCs across much of planet - and it will take similar major, universally supports action to solve the environmental problems.

All we're doing here is cleaning the Windows while ignoring the fact that the rest of the house is on fire.

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

Never heard of anyone going up to Welling before. But then I did live there.

Learnt a lot of scientists' names & cycled around a lot of back streets tho'

But wouldn't paper bags get wet in the bin & tear, just like those old paper carrier bags did. Plastic bags were a great advance.

I'm down in Deptford, Welling's uphill. BTW, 2 of my grandsprogs are at Hook Lane Primary and another starts next year. And I've cycled all the front, back and sidestreets in Welling. Excepting the A2 this century. I just did a search for bin liners on Welling library website and it recommended a book called Creative Costumes. Perhaps they wear well....

 

[martint235]

I'm down in Deptford, Welling's uphill. BTW, 2 of my grandsprogs are at Hook Lane Primary and another starts next year. And I've cycled all the front, back and sidestreets in Welling. Excepting the A2 this century. I just did a search for bin liners on Welling library website and it recommended a book called Creative Costumes. Perhaps they wear well....

http://www.bexley.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=15400 Here you go. They call them caddy bags.