A round of applause to M & S for charging food shoppers 5p for a plastic bag and giving the money to an environmental charity. Will you pay 5p? I bet you won’t. You will take a reusable bag. That has been the experience in the Republic of Ireland, where a plastic bag levy was implemented in 2002.
It’s a hot topic up for discussion on Newsnight tonight.
I hope their researchers pick up on the 
fact that the UK government has taken the soft option on this, and how towns across the country are taking matters in to their own hands by introducing their own plastic bag ban. I hope their researchers take the trouble to find out how many towns have followed the pioneering and brave step of shopkeepers in Modbury, Devon, the first town to introduce their own ban last year.
I was very disappointed that David Miliband, even after visiting Ireland and seeing for himself how successful the ban was, came back and said he would be happy with a 25% reduction of plastic bags in the UK within 2 years, as opposed to the 90% plus reduction which the Irish managed.
This is a subject close to my heart, it is something I researched for an academic paper in 2005 for which I was awarded a distinction. I 
highlighted the global concerns about how these flimsy bags clogged up rivers causing drought. I was aware of how deadly they could be to sealife – and indeed wildlife – if the bags were swallowed, as well as being a major littering problem. In 2002 I visited Dublin to research an article on this for an environment magazine and spoke to government officials and retailers, as well as shoppers, about its success.
What is clear is that large organisations and citizens in the UK are making their own decisions and being proactive because of our government’s inactivity. I can’t something of another issue where this is more evident. It’s real "Power to the People" stuff. There is lots more on this topic on the Abolish Plastic Bags blog.
And well done to the Daily Mail for sharing my views on this, six years on….
*While on the subject of the environment, you may like to read this article by Tony Juniper which questions how committed our government is to the environment. The plastic bag issue highlights it perfectly.
Waste plastic like these can cause havoc in seabird colonies too. Things like gannets try to collect it up for nesting material and smaller species can get tangled up in it and drown. It is pitiful to see a gannet trying to fly against the wind, help up by a billowing plastic bag round its neck.
I confess to being one of those people that use the plastic bags…. I find lots of uses for them at home..BUT i would not pay 5p for one.
I hate to see them flying around in our nice countryside causing so much havoc so if by charging for them helps prevent this then its a good idea.
Good for you! I have a similar obsession (esp about jellyfish/ turtle issue) and a couple pof weeks ago lighted on the marvellous Feargal Quinn, a senator and legendary supermarket entrepreneur. He wrote the following for my op-ed page athe European Voice (weekly in Brussels belonging to the Economist Group).
Using benign bullying to create better societies
By Feargal Quinn
These days legislators tend to be hesitant about trying to effect change – especially social change just by passing a law. Today’s conventional wisdom suggests that that can be brought about only through consensus, built slowly and carefully over time. Yet Ireland has recently brought about radical change in two quite unrelated areas noted for entrenched and obdurate public attitudes. Over five years Ireland succeeded in eliminating the use of plastic bags as containers for shopping and eliminating smoking in any public place, including bars and restaurants.
As of a week ago, nearly 37 billion plastic bags had been used in 2008 worldwide, a figure that rises by about a half million bags every minute. Most are not used again, ending up as waste, landfill, or litter. Being light and compressible, plastic bags constitute only 2% of landfill, but since most are not biodegradable they will be there for decades.
As a supermarket operator, I was the battered veteran of a long campaign against plastic bags. I tried charging for them – only to be met by wholesale mutiny among my customers who threatened to shop elsewhere. I tried to persuade shoppers of the virtues of recyclable bags, and even subsidised their sale.
But nothing I did had any effect whatever; indeed, the number of bags continued to increase.
Similarly, Ireland had long been plagued by the impact of people smoking in public places. Only a minority smoke in Ireland, but everyone suffered. Many people, myself included, refused to go into pubs at all, because we would invariably come out with clothes reeking of smoke. Tentative efforts to encourage non-smoking areas had little if any success.
So the ambitious plans of two Irish government ministers to tackle these issues by legislation were received with much scepticism and by concerted opposition by vested interests. “Put a tax on every plastic bag used in retailing?� “Ban smoking everywhere people are working?� Both sounded totalitarian. In traditionally easy-going Ireland, everyone expected such measures to be laughed out of court.
The reality turned out otherwise. Heroically, the two ministers resisted all efforts to dilute their new laws – both refusing to introduce the measures gradually or to allow a raft of exceptions. Vested interests were routed by this unusual and unexpected show of leadership.
Amazingly, the Irish people adopted both of new laws immediately and without question. Within only a few months, even the doubters had been won over, and people began to take pride in their now litter-free countryside and the healthy atmosphere of social gatherings. What are the lessons to be learned from this Irish experience? First, it demonstrates what can be achieved by a leader who is prepared to set a bold course and then stick to it. It shows, too, that people have no real problem even about being bullied a little to do what they in their hearts know is right.
Smoking in public places is now being banned all over Europe. Similarly legislators across the world are re-considering whether they should bring an element of compulsion into attempts to control the scourge of plastic bags.
Certainly Ireland is a better place today as a result of these two bold legislative experiments. The irony is that it should be such a notoriously easy-going society, with a strong aversion to rules and regulations, which should show the world the way forward.
# Feargal Quinn is an independent member of the Irish Senate. As president of Brussels-based EuroCommerce, which represents some 6 million shops across the EU, he has repeatedly called for taxes on plastic bags.
© Copyright 2008 The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved.
Comments above have concentrated on the waste element of plastic bags (as opposed to energy used to produce them). If you are going to taklk about waste – plastic bags account for around 0.2% of what goes to landfill. Nappies are 6% – so should we advocate a tax on nappies or just ban them? A brave politician would suggest this. Well actually no politician will suggest this.
I tend to recycle plastic bags as bin bags but I think I’ve got enough to keep me going for many years even with a ban 🙂
It’s a good thing that M&S have done and won’t do their image any harm at all.
I have been using reusable grocery bags for years and always carry them in the car. While I also use them in the green grocers too I never think to carry a bag to the mall so end up with plastic bags there. I must be more vigilant about this.
Don’t you just love these Gordon Brown initiatives?
Well, no, I wouldn’t and I think M&S have always been stingy regarding carrier bags. As I’ve said before, Ellee, it’s OK if you have a car outside but if you haven’t and make purchases in addition to those planned, then how are you supposed to carry them? Here I am charged a centesimo or 2 for each plastic bag and I don’t mind that as I use them for the rubbish afterwards but I think 5p is excessive and if I were there, I would boycott M&S!!
What about WRAP warning that a tax on plastic bags would actually increase pollution? That more plastic will get used (which is the experience in Ireland)?
Tim, I think if that was really the case, if it was a big issue, Ireland would change its policy. There are always arguments against environmental initiatives, but you have to consider the broader picture and the support this has had from its citizens, and how it has made them think in a more environmentally friendly way too.
Quite a contrast
the beauty in nature
and the scurge on the environment that is the visible contribution from human waste
Litter is a bain in this once beautiful country.
It’s mainly the babies who can’t throw their rubbish away properly who are at fault.
Yet again we all get dragged down to the lowest common denominator and everyone pays.
Hi – I would not pay supermarkets 5p for every plastic carrier bag I use as its not helping the environment at all. Plastic bags are a terrible waste of energy (in production) and then most are thrown away. I know that some are reused but the majority are used just once.
I have bought a range of reusable bags and keep some in my car for the supermarket shop. I have also just bought a really handy ecocarrierbag which packs down into a small attached pouch so I have one with me at all times – even on those unplanned shopping trips. I kept forgetting to take my reusable bags with me when I went shopping – so these really help!
I have found it really easy to cut out use of plastic carrier bags altogether.