London Joins Plastic Bag Ban

British shops hand out a staggering 13 billion every year. But after a decision by 33 London councils yesterday, plastic bags could be soon be consigned to history, unmourned by anyone who cares about cleaning up the environment.

Eighty villages, towns and cities, including Brighton and Bath, have introduced or are considering a ban on them since shops in the Devon market town of Modbury went "plastic bag- free". But yesterday represented the most significant move yet. The capital is now on board.

All 33 authorities in the London Councils group voted for legislation to prevent shops in the capital handing out free plastic bags. In the next fortnight Westminster Council will present a private Bill to the House of Commons which would apply to every London shop from the humblest newsagent to Harrods.

Shoppers clutching large numbers of bags in London's West End could become a thing of the past; instead they will be asked to use sturdy reusable plastic "bags for life" or cotton or string hold-alls. London's authorities said they needed to halt the environmental damage done by plastic bags, which use oil and landfill space and kill marine wildlife.

One shop in north London has already placed itself on the front line of the plastic bag revolution.

As well as banishing non-biodegradable carriers from behind the till, it has taken away almost all of its packaging, leaving shoppers to bring in their own jars, pots and bags to be filled with their day's groceries.

Catherine Conway, the owner of Unpackaged in Islington, which opened last week, said the idea came to her when she was decanting rice from packets into jars at home. "It made me think there must be a way of taking out this process," said the 30-year-old.

In her new shop, wooden crates overflow with organic vegetables that are put straight into customers' bags, vats of olive oil are on tap to refill their own bottles, and barrels of environmentally friendly detergent can be poured straight into containers brought from home.

Dried foods such as pulses, nuts and rice are arranged in square containers in the centre of the shop, while hand-made chocolates and fudge stand in traditional glass jars above the counter. Joy Schendledecker had come – carrying a cotton bag – with her five-month-old baby to buy environmentally friendly toothpaste.

The good news is that there is a simple and proven solution to this environmental blight. Ireland imposed a modest plastic bag tax in 2002, which has reduced their use by 90 per cent. The bad news is that, despite the fact that Britain's plastic bag pollution is every bit as bad as it used to be across the Irish Sea, our own government refuses to follow Dublin's example.
Yet something is stirring at a grass-roots level in this country. Earlier this year, a local campaigner in the Devon village of Modbury, Rebecca Hosking, persuaded all 43 local shops to substitute their plastic bags with reusable cloth bags. Traders in 80 other small towns around Britain are following suit. Brighton and Hove council last week became the largest authority in Britain to offer support for a voluntary ban.

Marks and Spencer is to introduce a 5p charge for plastic grocery bags in England, the company announced today November 6 2007.

The move follows a successful trial by the company in Northern Ireland which led to a 66% reduction in the number of plastic bags used by customers.

In 2002, a National Packaging Covenant Council plastic bags working group in Australia identified four main concerns with plastic shopping bags:

Plastic bag littering, and associated indiscriminate waste disposal and consumer behaviour;

Resource consumption issues, including reduction, reuse and recycling;

Plastic degradability issues relating to littering and resource use;

Social issues, community education and awareness, and consumer perceptions.

The following disadvantages have also been identified:

Plastic bags are made of petrochemicals, a nonrenewable resource.
Plastic bags are flimsy and often do not stand up as well as paper or cloth.
When disposed of improperly, they are unsightly and represent a hazard to wildlife.
Conventional plastic bags are not readily biodegradable under any normal circumstance.
Plastic bags can cause unsupervised infants to suffocate.

Disruption of Wildlife
When littered, plastic shopping bags can be a hazard to wildlife.

Recycling
According to the United States EPA, only 1% of plastic bags were recycled in 2000. When one ton of plastic bags is reused or recycled, the energy equivalent of 11 barrels of oil is saved.

According to the UK government department for environment (DEFRA), there are several problems with plastic recycling, and in particular plastic bags:

the high volume to weight ratio of plastic means that the collection and transport of this waste is difficult and expensive
there are often high levels of contamination in plastic making the recyclate less usable, especially where food products are involved
there is a very wide range of plastics in use and segregation is difficult
the market for using recycled plastic is underdeveloped

Next time you go grocery shopping in San Francisco, you won’t be hearing “paper or plastic” at the check out. As of this past March, San Francisco is officially the first city in the United States to ban plastic shopping bags in certain establishments. The city by the Bay’s Board of Supervisors approved the groundbreaking legislation that would officially ban plastic checkout bags supermarkets by September and pharmacies by early 2008. City officials are optimistic that other U.S. cities including Los Angeles and New York will follow suit.

A ban on the use of thin plastic bags in Uganda for environmental reasons has been ignored despite coming into effect across the country.
A BBC correspondent in the capital, Kampala, says the bags are still on sale in the city.

Ugandan Finance Minister Ezra Suruma banned the import and use of the bags and imposed a 120% tax on thicker ones in this year's budget.

Offenders risk a jail term of three years or a fine of up to $20,000.

Uganda introduced the ban because of serious environmental concerns and difficulties in the disposal of plastic bags and plastic containers.

The BBC's Joshua Mmali in Kampala says the bags were in full display at the main Nakasero market and residents complained that the notice period given to sell off the bags was too short.

Ugandans also say they were not given enough warning about what alternative packaging materials they could use, our correspondent says.

But the spokesman for the National Environment Management Agency (Nema), Naomi Namara Karekaho, insists that adequate information has been communicated across the country.

Police in Uganda are expected to enforce the new environmentally friendly laws but so far no arrests have been made.

The ban on the use of plastic bags has also been imposed in Kenya but Finance Minister Amos Kimunya announced that it would not come into effect until January next year to allow manufacturers time to clear their stock.

Tanzania set the pace for the East African community in 2006 when Vice-President Ali Muhammad Shein announced a total ban on plastic bags and ordered a switch to recyclable or biodegradable alternatives.

· Taiwan is prohibiting not only plastic bags, but also disposable plastic plates, cups and cutlery used by fast food vendors. Threat of fines of up to £152 have resulted in a 70% reduction in the use of plastic bags, and a 25% cut in landfill waste.

· Ireland's 15p "plastax" on carrier bags, introduced in 2002, has led to a 90% reduction in use.

· In France, reusable plastic bags - heavier, easier to recycle and less likely to blow away - now account for more than half of the market.

· In 2002 Bangladesh became the first country to ban plastic bags. A movement against them began in the 1980s in Dhaka, where bags were found to clog drains in the monsoon rains, causing flooding.