We're pretty dedicated recyclers round our way. We compost kitchen and garden waste, sort cans, plastic bottles and newspapers into special boxes for collection, and make regular runs to the local dump to recycle stuff that the city doesn't currently pick up, like bottles and cardboard. We're not looking forward to the introduction of bi-weekly collections (and finding a home for another wheelie bin) next year, but no doubt we'll get used to it.
However, we're quite bemused by the Government's apparent intention to ban supermarkets from giving out plastic bags. Oh, I know this has already been done in Ireland, and I've read all about how the damned things take millions of years to decompose in landfills. But I can't see how either I or the environment will benefit from a ban.
The anti-bag slogan is "twenty minutes of use, decades to decompose". Is this really the case? How many people take the groceries home in a bag and then just throw the bag out? I'm sure that most people do what we do, which is to use the bags for collection of kitchen waste, hung inside one of those little bins that you attach to the inside of the cupboard below the kitchen sink.
What will we do if the supermarket bags are banned? We'll almost certainly start to buy the mini bin-liners that are sold for this purpose. We'll be throwing out just as many bags as before, except they'll be the higher-quality bought ones, which may well take more scarce resources to produce. So who benefits here? The supermarkets? Yes, they no longer have to buy bags to give away -- instead they get to sell them at a profit. The bag makers? Yes, they get to sell higher-quality bags to retail buyers, instead of selling cheapo ones at bulk prices to the supermarkets. Me and the environment? Hell no.
No comments:
Post a Comment