A Tax on Plastic Bags? - Yes Please!!!

[Metabarca]

Re: A Tax on Plastic Bags? - No Way!!!

Maybe, but not in my neck of the waters! We are happily free of most of the gunk you seem to swim in around the UK. I know of no-one with a stripped on the prop-shaft, for instance.

P.S. We have to pay for our plastic bags here. Typically 5 to 10 cents each; they tend to get re-used!

Buon vento!

Metabarca

Boributai

 

[Metabarca]

and in Italy

Here too, we pay for our plastic bags in all supermarkets but, oddly, they're often free from local shops. Certainly, there's a deal too much plastic around, but most of the bags end us as rubbish bags, and a lot of plastic bottles, glass and tins are recycled (at least they end up in the containers... who knows what happens thereafter). Luckily, not much plastic in the water where I live (Trieste).

Buon vento!

Metabarca

Boributai

 

[Steve101]

If someone with 14 years sailing experience tells me don't take your GP14 out on the lake today cos it wont work. I'll believe them. I have 14 years experience of retail at the very pointy end trust me it wont work. Some people wont even buy a game if it aint shrink wrapped and bear in mind that we have to take the game out to put it on the shelf. Someone once said "There's nowt as queer as folk." and that is true. My competitors offer a loyalty card scheme which allows you to collect points which equates to money off roughly 50pts = 50p. Some customers would sooner collect the points then save a fiver off their initial purchase. You may however be one of the sane ones.

 

[spark]

What about a tax on plastic boats?
(just to stir it up a bit)

 

[Guest]

you mean you want to tax more than 17.5% )

 

[Guest]

Re: Reality Check?

Now lets take to ex soviet states in the baltic ..... all markets / shops charge for placcie bags ..... except for the thin couldn't carry a fart type .... now the larger shops are starting to act like UK style in GIVING AWAY proper bags ... so we are developing a bag disease here !!!

But the old system was under soviet times to always carry a placcie bag ready for the appearance of products not normally available and BUY ... they got nicknamed Russian Handbags .....

 

[Guest]

Isn't it the old adage of you get 'nothing for nothing' .... everything eventually gets paid for ... if you collect points, you don't get the discounts ....

Lets bring another silly point in here .... I have been known to pay a little more for an article because of service and also that I can have it over the counter in my grubby mits immediately ..... I hate mail-order, as uyou always wait with trepidation that the article will arrive in time for its intended use !!!!!

 

[Rob_Webb]

I think 'x' years experience in anything is a complete red-herring...... I am a consultant to an industry where I constantly hear "oh, I've got 10 years experience in so-and-so".... but when you dig beneath it you find that they've actually got 1 year's experience 10 times over.

But if that's your tack then I have got 34 years experience as a consumer so surely I know what I'm talking about when it comes to customer habits because I am one!

As for the price, well my shopping rarely comes to exactly round numbers so if 4p was added to my bill of £13.52 then I wouldn't even notice.....

Sorry for the robust reply but maybe I'm having an off week!

Rob

 

[Rob_Webb]

Re: Reality Check?

I admit that I'm not a retailer (but I'm active from the other side of the counter) but I must also say that in the grand scheme of things I can't get excited about the challenge of sorting out a problem like 4p plastic bags.... it just seems so trivial with so much other aggro going on in the world.

But as you might have seen from my other reply below maybe I'm just having a bad week and losing my sense of fun?!

Rob

 

[bedouin]

Re: Beg to Differ

There is little doubt that our impact on the environment is one of the most pressing problems facing us at the moment - that is really what the "Earth Summit" is all about.

While superficially the plastic bag issue may seem trivial, in fact it represents the real problem with environmental issues. Excess packaging wastes resources and money in its production, it can create a problem with polution if not disposed of carefully, and even if binned still wastes precious land-fill resources.

To solve it requires a change in attitude for consumers in the developed world - persuading them to accept a minor inconvenience in order to help protect the environment.

If you think that is easy/trival then you should pop down to Jo'burg and tell them how!

 

[ParaHandy]

Re: Beg to Differ

As ever, its not as simple as it might appear and not a matter of educating the consumer. The consumer has shown in the past a willingness to recover packaging WHERE there is an incentive to do so - usually a return charge.

The UK packaging regulations came from the PRG (Producer Responsibility Group) who determined that each user in the chain from manufacturer to seller would bear a proprtion of the disposal costs. The obvious and easier method of collection and sorting at the point of sale was rejected by the supermarkets even though there was considerable actual practical evidence that this was the cheapest and most effective way of recycle and recovering packaging waste (in mainland Europe who in the main pay no recovery/recycling taxes). The solution the PRG adopted was a scale of charges with the point of sale bearing the greatest (40%) and on down to the polymer/glass/cardboard manufacturer 11%. This is the most expensive and least efficient recycling and recovery regime. In practice, the waste is burnt as the EU directive permitted energy recovery as equivalent to waste recovery.

However, almost on the day the regulations became law, the supermarkets saw the bottle banks on their property as being THEIR property. In one cynical move they reduced their recovery requirements and costs substantially.

The supermarkets grip on this government continues. The Climate Change Levy which is merely a tax on manufacturing industry but collected by the electricity RECS could be avoided if a fossil fuel reduction could be demonstrated over a number of years. The tax was avoided in anticipation of a reduction - not reduced after proving so. Suddenly, every Sainsbury supermarket had their bakeries excluded (as did Asda, Tesco). I mention Sainsbury simply because of the position Lord Sainsbury has in this government.

I could go on and on but it appears that the more people are aware of how cynically we are manipulated the more inured we are to it........

 

[Guest]

ah if only life was so simple and all consumers were like you the retailer would have far less problems. Anyone who has survived as a small retailer should be listened to. As Parahandy mentioned further up the thread the hold that the 'grocers' have is vast plus they have and are putting many small retailers out of business. The plastic bag is an issue as Bedoin pointed out and when taken in with packaging overall is a huge environmental problem but it will only be resolved when & if there is a political will so to do. I just hope your week gets better

Pete

 

[Viking]

Re: The silly part about is-

- that we take the empty plastic bottles back to the shop in the plastic bags. There is a big bag to collect these used bags once youve emptied them. You go round into the shop to spend the money (ticket of the mount returned) and pick up another plastic bag to put your shopping in. I have never seen anyone keep and reuse the old plastic bags. - even me!

 

[Steve101]

Visa vie. Because I have been a passenger on boats for 30 years I can sail around the world single handed. Sounds like crap.....it is!!! As Peter Gough points out. If only all my customers could be like you I would be two grand a year richer. We all have bad weeks no offence taken.

 

[Joe_Cole]

Ah! So you've got 1 years experience as a consumer, 34 times over?

Joe Cole

 

[Cornishman]

Today's news is that the Co-op has a new plastic bag which decomposes in 5 years, unlike most others which take anything up to 100 years to degrade.

 

[Guest]

Re: A Tax on Plastic Bags? - No Way!!!

Yes. I recall many happy anchorages in Tesco

 

[Guest]

Re: 20 billion makes it a serious problem

If the figures quoted are remotely realistic, then even I am prepared to take it seriously. I generally regard the rubbish spouted by the so called Friends of the Earth as beneath contempt, but I am with them on this. To reduce a genuine land and sea based refuse problem by 90% in one year, is an aplaudable achievement.
Ireland leads!

 

[Footpad]

Yes; but where do they come from?

I know not all users of the sea are saints but I really can't believe the numbers we are hearing about here have really been thrown overboard by us! There must be another mechanism at work here like - blown from seaside litter bins or even landfill sites I do not believe that that number of rational human beings are deliberately dumping their rubbish in the sea. Is anyone here prepared to admit to it or even having seen someone else do it?

 

[Romeo]

Re: Yes; but where do they come from?

The vast majority of bags in the sea are blown from land. I sail downwind from Edinburgh. When there is a westerly the amount of non bio degradable rubbish in the sea increases dramatically. See also your local hedgerows to see what a mess we inhabit in the UK.

It takes a tax at the point of sale to change behaviour with an explanation on why it is being levied. I fear that the government will try to tax the retailers rather than the customers. This will defeat the whole point as punters will just accept the extra cost of their beans and keep on using the same number of plastic bags. When I tell a shopkeeper, "no thanks I don't need a bag" they almost always look at me as if I am an alien. It is so easy to take a shopping bag with you when you go shopping. The tax has to be used to change peoples attitudes, rather than just to put more money in Gordon Browns pocket.

Ditto road tolls for entering London/ Edinburgh. Oh and a large tax on chewing gum. I think I must be a Meldrew.