Why Is This So Difficult?

[ToraToraTora]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26048425
don;t pi55 about with a shilling a bag make it a pound across the board. I don't get it, ake aways can use paper like they do now, simples!

[hc4361]

Paper isn't the answer. Think of the trees.

[ToraToraTora]

recycled paper that's what they use now.

[Bazile]

I cannot see how a charge of 5p a bag is going to stop people using plastic bags .

How many bags does the average person need for their shopping 3, 4 , maybe .
So forking out 20p is going to deter people ?

[emmie]

stop handing them out at checkouts, our supermarket still does it usually without a by or leave, i use my shopper or a bag to carry shopping, charging people for plastic bags is a waste of time, you would just factor it into the cost of the shopping.

[emmie]

a chap in the queue the other day must have used about twenty bags,
he spent in excess of 150 quid, so charge a couple of pounds wouldn't have been much extra in reality,

[pixie373]

I have about 20 plus bags and pass them over to the owner of our local shop. I avoid anywhere that charges for bags, because i feel I've spent enough there anyway. I could always ask the staff to help me carry all the individual items to my car, i suppose...

[Old_Jim]

It's because English Law is prescriptive. If they introduced a law saying you must not name a child Jack, it would not apply to naming him Jak or Jaq.

The sad thing is that they've got the problem back-to-front. Vinyl is a byproduct of the petrochemical industry. If you want a tank full of petrol for your car, the refinery is stuck with a gallon of vinyl chloride to dispose of. Polymerising it and making it into cheap plastic bags seemed such a good idea. We need our chemists to come up with a better process so that we don't need to make tons of PVC to give away as bags to supermarkets. If there wasn't so much of the stuff around, people wouldn't be able to send it to landfill or chuck it in the sea. Taxing it won't make it go away.

[ToraToraTora]

It's only stupidity and laziness that makes plastic necessary.

[hc4361]

If I didn't use free plastic carrier bags I'd have to buy single use plastic rubbish bags for my bins.

[douglas9401]

Mr Clegg, as usual, just couldn't stop talking. Don't exempt small shops and takeaways, theirs are the bags doing the most damage.
Only in England could a 5p charge bring the swivel eyed onto the streets.

[emmie]

they aren't free though are they? certainly the environment gets clogged with them, and they aren't particularly biodegradable.

[ToraToraTora]

Ireland have managed

[hc4361]

I bet those very thick 'bags for life' take a lot longer to degrade.

[emmie]

pixie, why not just use the ones you have...

[mikey4444]

We have the 5p charge here in Wales for ages....about 2 years I think. It works perfectly and nobody is complaining at all, even the usual suspects, like my sister-in-law. We all now use those marvelous strong, long-life plastic carriers from Tesco, or Morrisons, or Sainsburys. They are better than the flimsy ones that we occasionally have to pay 5p for and don't rip open on the way back to the car, spilling Gin everywhere when the bottle breaks.

Not that I use Sainsburys much. Like Alan Coren I can't really see the point of Sainsburys, unless its to keep the riff-raff out of Waitrose.

[emmie]

i thought that line was used by Stephen Fry, as i remember him saying it on Q1 once.

[Old_Geezer]

Better still don't piss about. Keep government nose out of folks lives where they ought not be sticking it in.

[emmie]

i think they are trying to stop the waste of plastic bags, as they clog up not just the countryside, the rivers, and are not environmentally friendly. It isn't just about sticking your nose in, the billions of bags that are produced every year could be cut right down, and even if you charge for them, people will still buy them, 5 pence on the shopping is no big deal.

[pixie373]

I really should, emmie, if i can remember to take them with me.

[emmie]

if you buy one of those large bags, the ones they call a bag for life, or even a couple, they are useful, for a start they won't fall apart as you get your wine into them, breaking that nice bottle of Rioja, then the eggs that smash and make a messy omelette on the pavement, personally i hate these little bags, so use a back pack, my shopping trolley more often or not, and then no little mishaps.