Ban Plastic Bags?

[TonyF]

As Scarey said, here in LBF, it's not a problem. Lots of stuff comes in paper bags - and the small ones are great for keeping seeds in (from the bread shop or pharmacy), supermarkets don't give tyhem out at all tho you can buy bags for life and cold bags or in some supermarkets, large cardboard boxes for the boot of the car.

We still use our old Sainsbury's bags for life, plus a couple of large cotton/jute bags. The only pl;ace you're likely to get plastic bags is on the open market for fruit and fish, or even clothes, but that's about all. The few plastic bags we get are used to clean out the cat's tray and all the paper bags are recycled.

As in Ireland and France, if the ban is bought in it will take a while to adjust but once you get used to the system, not a problem.

[smallblueplanet]

...As in Ireland and France, if the ban is bought in it will take a while to adjust but once you get used to the system, not a problem.

I agree Tony, I'm just surprised that more of the older Grapes don't seem to remember a time when plastic bags where scare and your own shopping bag was king!

[Paul Wagland]

We've got better at remembering our bags for life recently, and it's amazing how you miss having spare plastic bags around - for lining bins, giving away spare veg, suffocating relatives etc.

Not that I'd complain of course - we just pinch a big bundle from the overflowing recycling bank in Sainsburys! (Also a good tip if you forget your own bags).

[OverWyreGrower]

I remember going shopping with my Mum and her taking loads of large plastic-y red and white checked bags in to fill up with shopping. Everything was put in 2 or 3 of these (tins on the bottom, bread on the top etc) and put in the boot of the car, no plastic bags.

I'm also sure a lot of the supermarkets used to have cardboard boxes for putting your shopping in too!

[Paulottie]

What on earth! is there anything that wouldn't be banned in this sterile utopia of yours 2sheds? S*d the placcy bags, ban banning things! As for charging 5p what difference is that going to make? just means more profit for the real villains of the piece.

Anybody with a modicum of sense, or who spends as much time in France as me, has brought themselves a basket or a few reusable bags years ago. I can't say I always remember them! but then I will usually ask for a cardboard box instead.

If they really wanted to make an impact perhaps the supermarkets could spend a few of those obscene profits employing more people to serve rather than selling apples in four packs. (as I am told customer damage is a reason for this).

Nearly everything comes in excessive packaging, the carriers are the tip of iceberg. Somebody was talking the other day of a pair of scissors they brought in those stuipid packs with the word 'use scissors to open' helpfully printed somewhere.They even shrink wrap cans together as multi-buys. It may cost a little more, but if you use the butcher and greengrocer instead (assuming the supermarkets have not put them out of business) food still comes in paper!...or better still go to the farmers market.

Let's really challenge ourselves and stop putting billions of gel nappies into landfill, I paid for a laundry service for ours...I did get a £30 discount on the council tax...whoopie okay cost a bit more but through economies of scale, if we all had to?

Banning things and more regressive taxation is not going to help this over-populated planet. In this sickening age of disposable, 'convenience' pre-packaged, style obsessed and gluttonous consumerism (with the associated rampant industrialization in India and China and the whole-scale rape of the planets resources) I fail to see what difference it makes in what you carry this mainly unnecessary sh*t home.

[smallblueplanet]

....I fail to see what difference it makes in what you carry this mainly unnecessary sh*t home.

We have to start somewhere. Its quite obvious that lots of people don't have the will or want to say 'no' on their own and so banning the bags could be a 1st step. Most of our society is based around coercive laws and clearly there's a reason for that.

[pigletwillie]

I can see paulotties very valid point,

what is the point of banning plastic bags when everything else in it is so very over packaged in the first place. Why do cornflake boxes have to be twice the size of the contents, Why do they sell 4 apples in a polysyrene mold and then wrap it again, why do organic veg come in plastic at all.

Plastic bags are naughty but at least most of them get used at least a second time.

[smallblueplanet]

....why do organic veg come in plastic at all.

Some of it now comes in the stuff made from corn-something-or-other and is compostable (don't say how long), so thats where ours has been going. If it can be done for some organic stuff, why not for other things that are deemed 'necessary' to be packaged.

[Paulottie]

"We have to start somewhere. Its quite obvious that lots of people don't have the will or want to say 'no' on their own and so banning the bags could be a 1st step. Most of our society is based around coercive laws and clearly there's a reason for that."


Whose 'we' Manda? I certainly started trying to make a difference more than 15 years ago (starting with renovating a warehouse in East London just with stuff I found in skips) and I am quite sure that many people here do too; because many allotmenteers tend to be made that way. It just I don't agree that a nanny state taxing and fining us is the way to our salvation. I really believe that there is a much more fundamental problem with the aspirations and organisation of our society.

I don't deny many people need re-education but then we've been brainwashed for years, but I also believe that the culprits are largely the successive governments and those that 'fund' (spelled 'BRIBE') them Its just big business! Since the manafacturing base of this country was destroyed by Thatcher and her cronies' we have slipped to a situation where we have almost limitless productivity(all foreign) driven by the need to dispose of the product. Therefore us worker ants are only really useful as consumers and hence this ridiculous credit situation, 365 day shopping,Nothing being built to last, almost immediate obsolescence in everything, and the fact its cheaper and easier to throw something away than fix it.

[smallblueplanet]

....Its quite obvious that lots of people don't have the will or want to say 'no' on their own and so banning the bags could be a 1st step. Most of our society is based around coercive laws and clearly there's a reason for that."

....I don't agree that a nanny state taxing and fining us is the way to our salvation. I really believe that there is a much more fundamental problem with the aspirations and organisation of our society.

I don't deny many people need re-education...

Its not just that is it. Why did we need the Factory Acts in Victorian times? Why didn't those nice industrialists just be kind to children? Why do we need regulations and laws now - because nothing would happen without them. You may wait for Utopia to develop through everyone's personal enlightenment, I'll lobby for the government to pass laws.

[jeannine]

Just been shopping in Aldi where they charge for plastic bags as a matter of course. The money they save means that they charge less for wonderful things like fruit bushes and trees and seeds.

It doesn't put people off shopping there, but what it does do is encourage people to re-use carrier bags and also use good old fashioned cardboard boxes.

Try shopping there Paulottie, I really recommend it.

[Paulottie]

Yeah and from what the papers would have us believe unless your funding the gov't to a sweeter tune than the massive corporations(preferably laundered through a third party) your lobbying may fall on deaf ears.

[Seahorse]

Interesting debate!

I can see that 're-education' is an ideal answer but really, how long will that take? 20 years? 50 years? If I didn't give a toss about it and brought my children up likewise, that's already another whole generation. Surely sometimes intervention is required?

[Paulottie]

Not sure we have an 'Aldi' in this neck of the woods. I'll look on line. Do they have less packaging of the products or is it just the carrier bags they are trying to reduce?

[smallblueplanet]

Edit - Ban plastic bags!