Carrier Bag Tax

[Wij]

Gordon Brown and the Daily Mail have formed an unholy alliance to rid the UK of the vile filth that is the common carrier bag. Gordon spouts bile about 'single-use-carrier-bags' conveniently ignoring the fact that the common carrier bag is the single most re-used piece of packaging in UK households (notably as dog-shit wrappers.)

Is this a good idea ? If so why ? What are the obectives of legislaton or charging and how will they be achieved ?

Some stores like House Of Fraser are already only giving out crappy paper bags which can't be re-used for pretty much anything and which cost more energy and money to make (even the Daly Mail admits this.)

(I wrote a stern letter of complaint to the Daily Mail about the lack of science in their article which is becoming a hobby of mine against that paper Fucking ESP is 'proven' my arse.)

 

[Starman]

I have nothing really to add or comment other than can I have your babies?

 

[DaGaffer]

Mixed feelings about this. When I was in Oz and NZ last year, people had definitely changed their habits and tended to use one or two 'proper' bags, which has to be a good thing; ignoring the potential damage to wildlife etc. carrier bags are a waste of resources. On the other hand, anything championed by Gordon Brown and The Daily Mail scores an 11 on my untrustworthyarsehole-o-meter.

 

[Embattle]

I do remember many years ago when I was a lad you used to pay for carrier bags.

 

[cHodAX]

I do remember many years ago when I was a lad you used to pay for carrier bags.

Yep everyone should have to pay for them and they need to get rid of the cheapo bags anyway to be replaced with these long life ones. If a bag gets used 10 times and the recycled that is a good thing, throwing it in a landfill is feking stupid when you consider the world is already running short on the resources these things are made from.

 

[Tom]

We already pay for them, nothing is free..

besides 5p is fuck all. You wont see me ever buying a bag for life.

 

[throdgrain]

Nar, on this one I agree with them. Rubbish and litter is a pet hate of mine, and carrier bags is a good place to start.

That doesnt mean of course that Gordon Brown isnt a band wagon jumping commie fuckwit, because he obviously is. He's probably just thinking of a way to make money out of it, then set up a plastic bag inspection department.

But our country is a fucking state. Rubbish blows with the wind on every street. It disgusts me.

 

[GReaper]

Yes we already pay for them indirectly. However unless people have to pay for them individually we won't see any change at all.

I can't see supermarkets turning around and saying that they'll charge per carrier bag. If one of them did this individually then I'm sure plenty of customers would just switch to another supermarket which doesn't charge for them.

 

[nath]

I can't see supermarkets turning around and saying that they'll charge per carrier bag.

Y'think?

 

[Wij]

Yep everyone should have to pay for them and they need to get rid of the cheapo bags anyway to be replaced with these long life ones. If a bag gets used 10 times and the recycled that is a good thing, throwing it in a landfill is feking stupid when you consider the world is already running short on the resources these things are made from.

You're being blind. The problems this is trying to address I would guess are:

1.) Environment
2.) Litter

The Irish legislaton has actually made both worse as eveidence shows. Shops give out paper bags now which use more resources and have no possible re-use. People buy close to 10 times as many bin-bags to bag the stuff they would have put in carriers for the bin. Fresh food is now more often wrapped in polystyrene and polythene that was previously sold loose. That packaging is far more likely to be littered than a carrier. Carrier bags account for less than 1% of landfill and there's an 80% chance they've been used more than once before they got there whch is an unparrelelled figure.

The intent of legislation is entirely irrelevant to whether it will actually work. For sure encourage greater use of bag-for-life but to tax the next best thing and not the far worse alternatives is plain dumb.

 

[Jonty]

When I was in Oz and NZ last year, people had definitely changed their habits and tended to use one or two 'proper' bags

Yeah, it's the same in Taiwan too, people's habits changed and they don't think twice about it now. You can still buy a strong bag at the point of purchase, department stores include it in the price, and some stores are exempt (like bakeries for food hygiene etc.).

To be honest, I don't see what the fuss is about, there are more important things in life. If I was in the UK, I wouldn't switch supermarkets etc. just because they started charging for bags. It's no effort to bring your own, and if you couldn't care less (Tom ^^) you can always pay.

The environmental benefits may be debated, but sometimes you have to be seen to be acting, even if it the benefits are unsure.

Anyway, keep things in perspective

Kind regards

Jonty

P.S. Marks and Spencer will start to charge in May, but if you shop in April they'll give you a proper bag for free.

 

[Wij]

The environmental benefits may be debated, but sometimes you have to be seen to be acting, even if it the benefits are unsure.

Oh come on. That's like noncing up the kids, just to show you care

 

[pez]

5p is enough to make people think. Whenever we go to get a few beers from our local off licence, which is about 200 meters away, when offered a bag i always decline but my house mate always gets one. He dosen't need one and as soon as we get in it goes straight in to the bin. I have a go at him but he dosen't care. Tell him that bag is 5p though and I bet he will stop using it.

 

[Mabs]

just a thought, and i dont know the answer so dont bite me

are those paper sacks the yanks are so fond of any better or worse than plastic carrier bags ?

 

[Draylor]

Well having lived in Ireland before & after the tax on plastic bags was brought in I guess I actually know what difference this makes.

The Irish legislaton has actually made both worse as eveidence shows.

Dont believe the propaganda. The Irish stats are being spun by a group of UK retailers who are not in favour of this, since itll force them to use paper bags which costs them more and so comes straight out of their profits. Noones feeding the press the other side of the story, and since journalists are such a useless lazy bunch of ***** these days they, as always, take the easy route and report the story they are fed, conveniently ignoring the reality.

Shops give out paper bags now which use more resources and have no possible re-use.

Correct, and recycling paperbags isnt a problem. If they end up in landfill it isnt a problem. Supermarkets dont use paperbags anymore than they did before the tax on plastic bags was brought in.

People buy close to 10 times as many bin-bags to bag the stuff they would have put in carriers for the bin.

Well duh, no brainer. See spin above.

Fresh food is now more often wrapped in polystyrene and polythene that was previously sold loose. That packaging is far more likely to be littered than a carrier.

Which has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not supermarkets, and other stores, give away free bags or not.

Carrier bags account for less than 1% of landfill and there's an 80% chance they've been used more than once before they got there whch is an unparrelelled figure.

1%? So what. Theyll still be there in 10/20/whatever years, unlike the majority of regular household waste.

Ive no idea where the 80% chance of reuse comes from, but I sure as hell didnt reuse a quarter, never mind 80% of the plastic bags I picked up in supermarkets/etc before the laws changed, and I still dont. Does anyone?

The intent of legislation is entirely irrelevant to whether it will actually work. For sure encourage greater use of bag-for-life but to tax the next best thing and not the far worse alternatives is plain dumb.

Less bags go in landfill = good. Noone claimed its going to save the world, but it doesnt hurt anyone

 

[Tom]

Scuse the bad grammar but im in jerez having a beer viewing this on my phone.

who cares if theyre in landfill? The only reason were running out of landfill is cor the eu wants us to b using less landfill so we can dump it in china and look like we care, which is bullshit.

only reason they want to do this is so they look good, most ppl are too thick to question it.

anyway the weather is great and the beer cold and cheap so tatty byes!

 

[Wij]

Well having lived in Ireland before & after the tax on plastic bags was brought in I guess I actually know what difference this makes.Dont believe the propaganda. The Irish stats are being spun by a group of UK retailers who are not in favour of this, since itll force them to use paper bags which costs them more and so comes straight out of their profits. Noones feeding the press the other side of the story, and since journalists are such a useless lazy bunch of ***** these days they, as always, take the easy route and report the story they are fed, conveniently ignoring the reality.

Spun by all sides. All I read in the papers is that the Irish tax caused a 90% reduction in numbers of carrier bags given out at supermarkets. The UK press is heavily spinning FOR a tax.

Correct, and recycling paperbags isnt a problem. If they end up in landfill it isnt a problem. Supermarkets dont use paperbags anymore than they did before the tax on plastic bags was brought in.

Wrong, the EU landfill directive actually calls for LESS degradable waste in landfill. It releases CO2 and methane and should be recycled where possible anyway, just like plastic bags should.

Well duh, no brainer. See spin above.

Yes it's a no-brainer. If people don't have free plastic bags for shit or rotten stuff they will buy them instead. How does that help litter/environment.

Which has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not supermarkets, and other stores, give away free bags or not.

Admittedly anecdotal evidence suggests it does. On my visits to Ireland I've seen a lot more fruit pre-wrapped than in Britain. If it's gonna be covered in plastic anyway then it's not helping anything.

1%? So what. Theyll still be there in 10/20/whatever years, unlike the majority of regular household waste.

As stated above, degradable waste is not necessarily a good thing. Is anyone really planning to dig up landfill sites in the next 1000 years ? We aren't running short. Check out Penn & Teller

Ive no idea where the 80% chance of reuse comes from, but I sure as hell didnt reuse a quarter, never mind 80% of the plastic bags I picked up in supermarkets/etc before the laws changed, and I still dont. Does anyone?

I read the figure somewhere, don't remember where but it rings true with me and the people I've spoken to. I re-use them for all kinds. If I start to get too many I give them to the mother-in-law for dog shit bags. If I've really got far too many I recycle them, but that almost never happens. This from a bloke who's the least environMENTAList you could imagine. I can't see why anyone would need to throw carrier bags out. They're a great useful freebie.

Less bags go in landfill = good. Noone claimed its going to save the world, but it doesnt hurt anyone

Covered above.

and /edit: Less Carrier bags in landfill != less plastic bags in landfill if people just buy more waste bags instead.

 

[Aada]

I think Plastic bags should be banned full stop they are used for nothing but to wrap shit up in then throw it away.

Just take a walk to your local park or anywhere near a large supermarket and just look at all the plastic bags caught in trees, bushes and anywhere else where the wind takes them.


Tesco built a Extra store within viewing distance of my house 1 year ago before that there was no plastic bags at all.

One year later they are fucking everywhere and the local council is out here atleast 3 times a week trying to get these bags come after the weekend and it's the same as last week the litter dropping scum have chucked their empty carrier bag they used to buy a bottle of coke and a choccy bar away and before you know it it is caught up somewhere and the whole cycle starts all over again.

Charge £1 a bag and it will cut it right down.

 

[Wij]

But most litter is actually food-wrappers and such. Carrier bags don't amount to shite.

 

[Tom]

Fucking hell, why must everything be about bans?

ban violent games! Save the children!

 

[Wij]

Expect a big hike on booze next. Punish everyone on the pretext that it will maybe stop a small minority being quite as fuckwitted but it's really about raising tax. Get some friendly journos to spread stories about cheap booze causing every problem known to man.

I think cheap booze is great. It saves me money. I don't get drunk on the street and rape pensioners or anything.

I think free carrier bags are great. I re-use mine sensibly and don't litter.

Why are laws being framed to punish the majority on the flimsy basis that it might alter the behaviour of the minority ? Which it won't.

There are already laws against stabbing, littering, vomiting in gardens and granny-rape. Try fucking enforcing them rather than introduce a new tax or ban or other dim-witted, meddlesome policy.

*fume*

 

[pez]

you seem to have a thing about sexually violating the elderly

 

[Wij]

It's a free country

 

[throdgrain]

Expect a big hike on booze next. Punish everyone on the pretext that it will maybe stop a small minority being quite as fuckwitted but it's really about raising tax. Get some friendly journos to spread stories about cheap booze causing every problem known to man.

I think cheap booze is great. It saves me money. I don't get drunk on the street and rape pensioners or anything.

I think free carrier bags are great. I re-use mine sensibly and don't litter.

Why are laws being framed to punish the majority on the flimsy basis that it might alter the behaviour of the minority ? Which it won't.

There are already laws against stabbing, littering, vomiting in gardens and granny-rape. Try fucking enforcing them rather than introduce a new tax or ban or other dim-witted, meddlesome policy.

*fume*

You're a star This is just the result of ten odd years of Labour goverment.

Please note, whilst I am very anti rubbish and plastic bags etc, I would not under any circumstances agree with a law about it. Thats all this goverment can do, make laws about things that already have laws covering them, so they can be seen to be doing something, and in the same breath get money out of you.

*****.

 

[Ch3tan]

I cannot believe some of the utter tosh we are fed everyday in the papers and news, this country is fast turning into Orwellian nightmare.

You are right throd, this is the result of 10 years of Labour, but I do not believe the Tories would have been any different, maybe just slower to bring about the loss of free will and freedoms.

I read some bollocks the other day to justify laws stopping adults spanking children to punish them. It rekons it will turn them into rapists and sexual deviants.

I think it is quite funny that we send soldiers to fight to install democracy on foreign soil, when we are not even allowed to vote our own PM into office, let alone vote on whether we want to be part of Europe or not.

 

[Wazzerphuk]

Expect a big hike on booze next. Punish everyone on the pretext that it will maybe stop a small minority being quite as fuckwitted but it's really about raising tax. Get some friendly journos to spread stories about cheap booze causing every problem known to man.

The problem is if you look at parts of Europe, such as Scandinavia, where they have high rates of tax on alcohol, there is virtually no anti social behaviour due to alcohol. As a result the streets are safer, public order offenses are much rarer, the police can spend time being USEFUL, and the health service benefits massively.

 

[Wazzerphuk]

I cannot believe some of the utter tosh we are fed everyday in the papers and news, this country is fast turning into Orwellian nightmare.

And I cannot believe the way people are so fast to resort to using random hyperbole about how this country is falling apart at the seams and becoming a police state when their lives are much the same as they were beforehand.

 

[DaGaffer]

The problem is if you look at parts of Europe, such as Scandinavia, where they have high rates of tax on alcohol, there is virtually no anti social behaviour due to alcohol. As a result the streets are safer, public order offenses are much rarer, the police can spend time being USEFUL, and the health service benefits massively.

Two key issues; population density in Norway and Sweden is orders of magnitude smaller than the UK (a fifth of the people in nearly four times the area), making social comparisons fairly useless, and while there isn't much social disturbance because of booze from Norgies and Swedes in their own countries, that's because they export it; try visiting Copenhagen on a Saturday afternoon, or the Baltic republics.

Excess drinking is a symptom of a wider problem in the UK, not a cause. If you nanny people into cotton-wool clad lives, throw in the longest working hours in Europe, and a young population that can't afford to leave home because of the most expensive housing, they're going to find an outlet. Take away the booze option and it will be something else; quite possibly worse.

 

[Scouse]

I can't personally believe that nobody's really had a pop at the environmental credentials of this headline-grabbing bandwagon-jumping piece of shit action.

Yep. It'll make the place a bit cleaner but it's just another excuse for the government and big business to do both "fuck" and "all" about the environment whilst looking green...

And I cannot believe the way people are so fast to resort to using random hyperbole about how this country is falling apart at the seams and becoming a police state when their lives are much the same as they were beforehand.

I've been feeling exactly that for a long time. It's real for many people - because different people have different tolerances to being told what to do by faceless government.

I'm law-abiding, never been in a fight (despite drinking for years and years), never "steal" (anything other than movies), don't drive dangerously, act environmentally responsibly etc. etc. etc. Yet I find the UK increasingly unbearable to live in.

Ten percent of British citizens choose to live outside the UK. I'll be one of them one day. Tony Blair said it was "because we can afford to" - but he's wrong. You don't choose to emigrate from a country you like - you emigrate because you fucking hate it.

The fact that bag tax is being reported in the news, despite being such utter utter bollocks and a waste of time (environmentally speaking) is just another reason to hate it.

Go to almost any other country in the world and you realise that the UK is full of fat, thick, ugly, selfish mother fuckers who are terrified of anything out of the ordinary and utterly convinced of their own superiority. Add to that you can't go from street to street without being CCTV'd to death, can't drink a pint without your beer matt telling you not to binge drink, can't drive your car without being patronised, can't walk around town without "helpful" signs from the police saying "lock your car" and "watch out for criminals", can't be yourself unless it's deemed "socially acceptable" - is it any wonder one in ten of us have left already and (allegedly) one in four of us are thinking about it?

BTW - the social demographic of the people who've emigrated indicates it's the intelligent ones leaving. Gradual erosion of "Civil Liberties" is one of the main reasons they say they left. Hmmmm, I wonder why...

 

[Wij]

Two key issues; population density in Norway and Sweden is orders of magnitude smaller than the UK (a fifth of the people in nearly four times the area), making social comparisons fairly useless, and while there isn't much social disturbance because of booze from Norgies and Swedes in their own countries, that's because they export it; try visiting Copenhagen on a Saturday afternoon, or the Baltic republics.

Excess drinking is a symptom of a wider problem in the UK, not a cause. If you nanny people into cotton-wool clad lives, throw in the longest working hours in Europe, and a young population that can't afford to leave home because of the most expensive housing, they're going to find an outlet. Take away the booze option and it will be something else; quite possibly worse.

I'm pretty sure the rates of alcoholism are sky high in scandanavia too despite all the tax. Perhaps one of our danes or swedes can confirm.

Let's face it, who'd want to be drunk on the streets up around the arctic circle. Piss in a doorway there and you could lose your cock.

Alcohol related yobbery is much lower in most places in continental Europe where booze tax is lower.

Our drunken yobs are like that because they want to be. Not because cheap (not even that cheap really) booze is practically impossible to resist.

I'm stocking up on the Easter beer offers and taking them home in carrier bags before it becomes too expensive