Ban Plastic Bags?

[scarey55]

Here in France, nearly everyone takes their own bags to the supermarket. It took me a while to get used to the idea but now, we always have a mixture of the "bag for life" type as well as a bag for frozen stuff and a couple of heavy duty ones for tins and bottles. I can't remember when I last bought a carrier bag.

As I said, it took a while to get used to but now we never forget. For me, the hardest thing was just getting into a different routine.

[pigletwillie]

The old girl and I do a lot of scuba diving when on holiday and I once saw a sainsbury's bag drift by when at 30 metres off the coast of St Kitts!!!!

I can honsstly say we see plastic on most dives, the plastic thingies that hold 4 cans of beer together are the worst, they are real wildlife killers.

I'm concerned about the use of plastics, but a 'bag for life' is not an alien concept to me - I'm old enough to remember string bags for your shopping.

Oh Manda, it doesnt have to be plastic, we use a wonderful fabric one made by Flum and several others made of some woven natural substance.

Now hemp bags for life would be really cool.

[HeyWayne]

Now hemp bags for life would be really cool.

Or do you mean bags of hemp for life?

[marialittlebzz]

I think ban is the way to just push ALL people to face our responsibility towards the planet, waiting until everyone just realized it is important to do so its just taking a time the planet don't have... what about ban on cars in big city center?
Sounds crazy but not impossible to me, in Bordeaux ( where im from) they have reorganized the center as to discouraged cars to go in : once you get into, one way road make you turn around indefinitely, so its far better to use undergrounds car parks situated on the edges of the city and then use the electric tram, far cheaper actually. It work. I saw it in Sevilla as well where you can simply "rent" a bicycle for nothing, just unlock it with a magnetic card and leave at any other parking point ( everywhere in the center) they have an electric tramway as well.
So what about ban? LETS BAN

[smallblueplanet]

I'm concerned about the use of plastics, but a 'bag for life' is not an alien concept to me - I'm old enough to remember string bags for your shopping.

Oh Manda, it doesnt have to be plastic, we use a wonderful fabric one made by Flum and several others made of some woven natural substance...

I didn't say it had to be plastic. I said I was concerned about 'the use of plastics', although it wouldn't surprise me if 'string bags' were made of plastic?

[Alison]

Have refused plastic bags for a few years now - got into a row with an assistant in a posh shop just before Christmas when he informed me that I had to have one "for security reasons", told him I didn't want the product then and suddenly it was OK so long as I held onto my receipt. I ask you, think he just wanted the blantant advertising that would have come with the shop bag rather than my perfectly nice organic cotton one!

Am with PW etc on the use of paper bags at supermarkets, we need to be cutting down on the energy to create things and that can only be done with taking your own bags to the shops.

[JennieAtkinson]

Bags for Life do seem to be taking off well here and I am now asked in many Lerwick shops if I want a bag, which I think is a major breakthrough. Stepping stones towards a ban - ie charging first then banning, might ensure that people think it through properly and do it for all the right reasons rather than bemoaning a ban as a knee jerk reaction. Then it is in the psychie and they will relate it to other things around them.

I am all for a ban, but I think if it is done in steps it might be more beneficial in the long run.

[Seahorse]

I think a charge then a ban is porobably the way to go.

I find it disappointing that in many shops I still have to say 'I've got my own bag... no, really, I've got one here... no, I'd like to use my own, thanks' I'm sure that as mentioned above it's the advertising potential that the big companies don't want to let go of

I've got a pattern to knit a string bag but haven't tried it yet!

JGibson: Turkish String Bag

[Protea]

I regularly request that i'm not given a bag at checkouts - a lot of the shops round here just automatically put your stuff in one. I've had some very odd looks when i say (as they've alrady started packing) "no, no, its fine i don't need a bag"!

I went travelling round the world a few years ago and in South Africa you've had to pay for placcy bags for ages, they also have a new law that states that plastic bags have to be a certain thickness so that they can be re-used. They had so many thin flimsy placcy bags that they were called the new flower of South Africa (all caught in trees and bushes) Australia and Hong Kong do indeed have fabulous re-usable bags, the most common are green material (plastic based probably) that fold up. We bought several back with us but most have disintegrated now.

Sadly i have loads of 'bags for life' bought from different shops, but they're either not in the car when i go to the shop, or hubby does the shopping and forgets to use them or doesn't have them with him etc. We must try harder! We do recycle our placcy bags at the moment but i would be absolutely up for charging for every plastic bag, and possibly a ban in the future (but come on... baby steps for the rest of the population eh?)

[everdream78]

I bought 5 jute bags from tescos for a pound each - they hold more shopping than the 20 plastic bags I would have used before buying them - absolutely invaluable!

[veg4681]

Here in France, nearly everyone takes their own bags to the supermarket.

Now why doesn't that surprise me? Methinks we're lagging behind in UK for a western European country (okay Italy is unique ). In Holland they even have recycling system/plant for disposable nappy although from energy point of view, don't know if that's any more beneficial for the environment in the long run as PW has cleverly pointed out the real environmental cost of producing paper based shopping bags. Is EU putting environmental pressures on UK, if they are then thank god!

[Two_Sheds]

Leave a couple of folding crates in the car boot (about £1.80 from T*sco) for supermarket shopping. They fit neatly into a trolley: fill with shopping, unload onto conveyor belt at checkout, fill up again when paying. Put full crate back in trolley, wheel out to car and off you go. No bags at all, and you only buy what you can carry!

I keep a couple of fabric totes rolled up in my handbag/pocket. It's really not hard. I can't understand this English attitude of "they're free so I'll have loads" or conversely "I've paid good money, so I'll do as I want"

[Protea]

DOes anyone have the blue plastic boxes that Sainsbury's did years ago, that fit into a special trolley so you could put things straight into the boxes and no bags required? (They might still exist, i don't shop there normally so don't know) My Mum had a full set and still uses them - they ahve very few plastic bags because of it.

Even further back, Waitrose used to do (and probably still do) trolley bags - similar to the boxes but soft sided so they folded down, which is better for space saving. Mind you, the sainsbury's boxes are doing very well on my parents sofa keeping the new dog off when they're not in!

[Alison]

A friend of mine has recently given up her car and as she needed a big shop, she did an online order with Sainsburys. She specifically requested that it was delivered in boxes. It turned up in over 20 bags, some containing a single item and a bottle of olive oil was in two bags! She rang to query and was told that they had to seperate things due to "contamination issues"!!!?????!!!!!! She then pointed out that using all these bags was against their environmental policy at which point the customer guy threatened to get the legal people on to her. It's still ongoing but, if nothing else it shows the total green wash of the supermarkets and a lack of customer care.

[Seahorse]

I don't drive and usually order from Tesco online. I have an ongoing 'no bags' request with them and they're pretty good at not using them but some things (like meat) do apparantly 'have' to be bagged.