Plastic bag use is increasing in the UK
Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011In Britain, plastic bag use is on the rise after the limited success of a voluntary agreement by retailers to cut the number of bags given to shoppers, according to figures compiled this week.
In Ireland, on the other hand, which imposed a tax on plastic bags in 2002, the number of plastic bags has plummeted. Consumers in the UK now use nearly four times as many plastic bags as those in Ireland.
According to the figures by the New Statesman from official government sources, the number of bags used a month by each person in the UK dropped from 11 in 2002 to 7.2 in May 2009, but then rose again to 7.7 in May last year an equivalent to 475m bags in total per month. In Ireland, the equivalent figure, compiled from plastic bag tax receipts, has dropped from 27 in 2002 to 2 in 2009, suggesting that the tax is having a strong impact on consumer behaviour.
Julian Kirby, resource use campaigner for Friends of the Earth said Ireland’s shoppers are enjoying freedom from the endless unnecessary plastic bags, as these figures show and a standard charge in England would help save resources and cut climate-changing gases.
Four years ago, single-use plastic bags became an environmental issue in the UK, after the residents of Modbury, Devon, banned them from the village. Photographs of wild animals caught up in plastic bags drew attention to the damage the bags were causing, and the Daily Mail joined the campaign, with a call in 2008 to “Banish the bags”, so that streets, fields, parks, seas, rivers and beaches will be cleaner for our grandchildren to enjoy.
Despite support from many sides, Gordon Brown backed away from imposing either a ban or a levy on the bags, and instead allowed retailers to create a voluntary agreement. The New Statesman’s wastepolicy report suggests the agreement, although initially leading to a drop in bag use, has had only a limited success.