2y ago

Supermarket plastic bag charge has led to 98% drop in use in England, data shows

www.theguardian.com

Environmental campaigners have called on the government to learn from its own successes after official figures showed the use of single-use supermarket plastic bags had fallen 98% since retailers in England began charging for them in 2015.
Annual distribution of plastic carrier bags by seven leading grocery chains plummeted from 7.6bn in 2014 to 133m last year, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said on Monday.

78 comments

Reminder that the biggest by far source of micro plastic in the air we breathe comes from tires. And there is zero research being done to find an alternative
- It's second to synthetic textiles
  Edit. in the ocean
  https://www.horiba.com/int/scientific/resources/science-in-action/where-do-microplastics-come-from/
  
  Thanks for providing the article, was an interesting read
  
  Yeah but synthetic textile is very broad and can be many products across different industries. A tire is an end product and if you find an alternative for that, you knock off the most contributing product of micro plastic.
- We already have a way to solve this, just don't drive so much.
  
  Metal tires and metal roads. Kind of slippery, so we might need to make some sort of ridges to guide our vehicle's direction. Stopping will still be hard, but if we just lock cars together and do it all at once it might be feasible.
  
  When the petrol car ban comes in, this could take care of itself as everybody finds themselves priced out of driving.
  We'll need a really good public transport system to replace it, but we won't get that either because we're too poor to care about.
- @Lemmylaugh @Emperor
  The tire companies researched and innovated for EV tyres, and that reduces shedding.
It's heartening to see that a small change can make such a big difference. Good luck trying to get the Tories to take that message onboard though.
- I was surprised myself, 10p a time adds up. Being so cheap it was easy enough to carry 2 large clothe bags in my backpack everywhere. Saved a fortune over the years over paying for plastic bags.
I honestly don't even usually want a bag.
But it's the default and I'm too lazy to tell them I don't need one every time. Making it not the default is plenty.
What is missed in this article is bags for life purchases. We saw the same article more or less in 2019 and once you factored that in there wasn't much of an improvement in plastic use or disposal. Expect the same to appear after this article at some point.
- A reusable plastic bag only needs to be reused ~40 times before it is better than single use plastic bags. Are people really using them so few times that they can't hit that?
  
  All the data says that no, people are not reusing them.
  Anecdotally, it makes sense. You left your bag in the trunk, or at home, or it turns out you got slightly too many groceries, or you're staying at a friend's house and you pop out to get some groceries and don't have your bag...
  
  40 times is fucking wild, I maybe get 5-10 if I really go hard before I forget to bring it one time and have to buy another one
Kind of interesting statistic proving people will adapt when forced too, at a time lots of people with dodgy agendas are claiming people won't go for environmental policies that inconvenience them.
- Yeah this is why I find Keir's pushback on Khan over ULEZ odd. By the next GE the ULEZ expansion would have been in place for nearly a year and the residents would have gotten over it - based on previous evidence (especially since most of the pushback is based on misinformation about what the scheme will do anyway)
  
  I don't understand anything Keir is up to at the moment. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt right after the disastrous end of the Corbyn era, but he seems to be pushing all the right buttons to put me off in theast year or two.
  But yeah, I remember people moaning about the bag coat when it came in, and lo and behold a year later everyone knew what to do and got on with it. ULEZ will be the same, you may have a few white van men and taxi drivers moaning still, but most drivers will realise it doesn't effect them and move on.
The county north of the one I live in decided to just ban them completely. So the big chain store that used to have free paper or plastic bags switched to charging for the paper bags.
This seems like such a better idea.
- Self serving checkouts ask you how many bags you want and charge for them in the UK. I have seen a growth in adults using backpacks, it wasn't the norm before the bag charge.
  
  Yeah I use my backpack, much better for carrying heavy groceries
  
  Doesn't everyone else just click no bags? Free bags baby.
- I was in Maine recently and they charge for bags there. At Walmart, the self checkout staff member was also selling bags to the people who needed them, in addition to monitoring everything else that happens at self checkout.
- The supermarket close to my home has self checkout, you just have to scan the bag in addition to your products.
- In Canada we just fully banned plastic bags. Walmart just doesn't offer any bags at self checkout anymore besides the reusable ones. It's kind of annoying if you forget to bring bags but it's not a huge deal. If I'm walking I'll just fill my personal grocery cart, or if I'm driving I'll just throw everything loose in my car. If I do need a bag I'll just spend $0.25 on a reusable bag.
  It's really not a big deal like a lot of people expected
  
  If I do need a bag I’ll just spend $0.25 on a reusable bag.
  Which is actually making the central issue - pollution and GHGs - worse than if we just had thin-film single use bags.
- I’m in a conservative small town. My Walmart no longer even sells one use grocery bags! They had signs up for a couple months before hand.
- Tesco and Sainsbury's usually just have the bags at the entrance to the self checkout and you just scan the bag before using it.
- They have a lot of self-checkouts in the UK - there's a member of staff on hand to help and they usually dish out bags although in some places you can just grab and scan a bag. If you wanted to not pay for one you could but the staff member and cameras are watching so it isn't all relying on honesty.
I honestly don't even usually want a bag.
But it's the default and I'm too lazy to tell them I don't need one every time. Making it not the default is plenty.
Does this mean everyone who goes shopping, goes in a car, or do they buy paper bags? and if you are walking there or taking the bus are you not being penalised for not taking the car ?
- I'm not sure I understand - I often walk to the shops and will stuff a plastic bag or two in my pocket. If I was buying any more than that, I'd be taking the car.
  
  I'd rather have my plastic bags reused for garbage, than have to always remember to carry around plastic bags, I like to shop after work on my way home. reusing them make them very easy to tear sometime and have to deal with a mess in the middle of the road
Call me skeptical, but I seriously doubt the accuracy of these claims. This is the kind of study that the supermarket would pay for to justify their for-profit decision to start charging people for something that has always been free.
- It's a government study.
- Well.. they're only counting 'single use' plastic bags..
  All supermarket plastic bags now are 'bag for life' aka. reusable (I'm not sure what was stopping people reusing the other ones, but that's the way it's done) so they don't count in the statistics.
  So the statistic isn't useful - I'd like to know the real numbers (including all bags) as I expect there has been a drop, but it isn't 98%
  
  Thank you! They did the same crap here where they stopped giving away plastic bags and started charging for paper bags which were always free before. Then they put plastic bags in the stores which are like 20x thicker than the previous plastic ones and use way more plastic, and they charge for those now. They're like "problem solved!". But nobody actually re-uses those. They just buy new ones every trip. So the outcome is that they stopped giving away thin plastic bags and started selling thick plastic bags, and they think it's a win. It's not a win for anything except the grocery store pocketbook. That study is completely pointless like you said. Of course there's a massive drop of the single use bags if they completely stopped offering the single use bags. But if it's anything like over here, they're actually producing more waste now, and costing the consumers money to do so.
  Edited for a bunch of phone typos
- It wasn't the supermarkets' decision to sell them — it's the law

78 comments