Plastic bags: two views

12:39pm Monday 21st January 2008

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The plastic bag ban' craze is sweeping the country and even the supermarket giant ASDA has taken to curbing the number they hand out.

But will an all-out ban work - or is a plastic bag tax the way to get people taking notice?

SARAH LEWIS speaks to two people with the same goal but very different approaches.

For a ban

MARIA CAULFIELD
Conservative councillor, Moulsecoomb and Bevendean

One of the motions put forward to the council last year was to put a 20p tax on each plastic bag. We were against that for a couple of reasons. Firstly, as a party we are against taxing things unnecessarily and 20p might not seem much but to people on low incomes that can add up to a lot of money. Also, we had no idea where the tax money would go - would it go back to the supermarket or the Government? Either way we were unhappy with it.

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, a tax really doesn't give incentive to retailers to provide an alternative, it just reduces their use. We wanted to eliminate the use of plastic bags and so a ban would send that message.

Certainly the feedback I've had is the majority of people will quite willingly use alternatives to plastic bags. While the local retailers are getting on board, only a few of the big stores are willing to do it so we needed something that would encourage retailers to find alternatives.

I don't think people are opposed to paying 20p for bag - I just felt it was not getting rid of the root of the problem.

We don't actually have the power to ban plastic bags outright at the moment. The chief executive of Brighton and Hove City Council has written to the Secretary of State regarding the issue and we haven't had a response yet.

Councils around the country are coming on board quite rapidly so we are hoping nationally to get some powers to enforce it but at the moment it is all down to the goodwill of the retailer.

In the meantime, we are essentially running an awareness campaign. We have plastic-bag-free week in February, which we hope will be the start of eliminating bags, and the council is working very hard on that. Every day we are getting another retailer on board.

Really, the ban is aimed at the free bags at the end of the check-out which have only a couple of uses.

We wouldn't necessarily target the thick plastic Bags For Life, which are quite long-lasting, but we really want to see proper alternatives as well.

Council officers are looking at the pros and cons of various types of bags and we will make that information available to retailers so they can make an informed choice.

As for people who worry about bin liners and the like, there is no reason people can't use alternatives such as strong paper bags, but we are also looking at how people dispose of their rubbish and try to minimise the amount that goes in the bin.

For example, the Waste Transfer Station at Hollingdean will allow more recycling across the city.

I hope the plastic bag ban will have a knock-on effect. It may seem like a small thing but everything adds up and has an effect.

It isn't going to combat Global Warming on its own but it is still an important issue.

For a tax

CHLOE HANKS
Plastic Bag Free Brighton

I'm not for an all-out ban on plastic bags. I think placing a tax on them is a far better idea because a ban takes the responsibility away from people. It is also not achievable unless it happens countrywide.

The bans happening across the world at the moment are on the very thin plastic bags which can only be used once. They've announced it in China for June, Bangladesh and other places.

Then a levy goes on the heavier duty bags.

Ultimately, both methods work towards the same thing but a tax gets you thinking more. A ban is a bit "out of sight, out of mind"

- you don't have to do anything about it.

A ban might sound as if it will be a great thing but if you look at the people who have one in place it doesn't really work in the right way.

In San Francisco, they banned the really thin bags but lots of people have started using paper bags instead - and they are about 50 times more unfriendly with all the processing that happens.

Another problem with a ban is it can leave the higher-end plastic bags - which wouldn't be included - in use and people end up using more plastic and still treating it in the same way because it is free. They would still not place any importance on what happens after its lifetime.

When green councillor Amy Kennedy brought her notice to motion for a tax on bags I was completely behind her but the Tories steamrollered it into a ban. Realistically speaking, though, a tax would be a far easier thing to introduce.

And through all of this, people are forgetting the main issue - which is just to use a reusable bag instead and to start thinking more about our waste. It can seem like such a small thing. People say "What's the point? It's just a plastic bag". But if you put it into the bigger picture we are using one million a minute worldwide.

It's more to do with the fact we don't know what happens to these things, they last more than 300 years in the environment but we haven't yet been around long enough to see the effects.

What we do know, though, is they are being broken down and eaten by marine animals and entering the food system.

The whole idea of biodegradable can be confusing as well - there are so many different types.

Some of the cornstarch bags start out in Italy and are flown to Iceland for manufacture.

The environmental cost is huge, but they are biodegradable so people think they are good. There is a whole gamut of other things to take into consideration and it all comes back to reusing.

Plastic bags are just the most ubiquitous icon of disposable culture.

Once we have dealt with them, we can start thinking about plastic bottles, packaging and so on.

I don't know how it became OK to chuck things out and not give a thought to them. But if you don't pay for something, you have no concept of worth for it, so a tax really does work well for this reason.

What do you think?