Selfsufficientish.com

Watching the news and there is talk about charging people 20p for a plastic carrier bag at the shops!!

About time to. It never ceases to amaze me how many people don't have their own bags. We have a whole cupboard full of old fashioned shopping bags, wicker baskets etc.

Sue

Good. Maybe it will make people more aware.

Great idea! It would encourage more people to use reusable ones.

I totally agree but how I wish I could say that I always remember the bags when I go shopping

indy wrote:I totally agree but how I wish I could say that I always remember the bags when I go shopping

If I forget my bags, I use a box, supplied by the supermarket, which I can reuse or recycle at home. And cardboard is much more sustainable than plastic and will rot, whereas plastic doesnt (well not for hundreds of years anyway).

Does anyone also have the problem of people on the till wanting to wrap your already packaged goods in small plastic bags before putting them in large carrier bags? The other day the girl on the till wanted to put an item in a small bag; I told her not to bother. A few items later - same thing; then again! Some people just dont seem to understand that before long Britain will be buried under a huge mass of waste plastic bags and ther will be no oil left to make new ones!

It's raw meats they like to bag, in case the "juices" escape, and sometimes small toiletries. I don't bag my fruit and veg anymore, just pile it on loose, sometimes they try to bag that too.

I use carrier bags for rubbish, and recycling, as well as for packaging and freezer bags for our own meat joints.

I get a bit annoyed when they see I have no bags and they ask whether I would like some, I have now taken to answering " well I won't have any, but only if you can put a levatating spell on all my groceries"

We are not at all wastefull, and only put out about a bin a month for landfill, but carrier bags are not the answer to global warming, comments about being away with carrier bags I think are daft, why manufacture bin bags, when you can get your shopping home, and use them again to put your bottles in for recycling? Reduce, Re-use, Recycle, in that order is best for the planet.

Ok so I am a bit swayed by saving £1 on the bin bags also as the carriers are free. The weight of plastic in a pound of strawberries or a vac packed joint far exceeds carrier bags, go and pick your own, go to the butchers counter, reduce, don't make me feel like a social pariah for using a bag to take my shopping home in.

It's been like that in Ireland for many years now, in fact it's quite amusing watching bemused tourists at the checkout in our local supermarket.
I believe it used to be 10c per bag but may have gone up now, and although it was a bit strange to start with .. remembering to take bags with you, it soon becomes second nature.
I have to say it has made a HUGE difference to the environment here, once upon a time there were discarded bags everywhere, escapees caught up in brambles, tree branches or just blowing along the roadside, but no more .. I can't remember the last time I saw a plastic shopping bag out in the wild.

Just Googled it and it started in 2002 and has reduced the number of plastic bags by 90%.(Wiki)

Paying for bags has just started here. 5c ( I think as havent bought any ) but due to go up to 15c shortly.

Too soon to say what the environmental impact will be. Mainly people seem ok about it all. can be a bit of a pain sometimes, if forget to take bags, or hadnt planned to buy anything!
A few of the local shops have had promotional bags made ( 1 given out free per customer) made of non-plastic, more long lasting material.

They dont have to charge for the smaller bags one puts fruit/veg,meat in, only carrier bags with handles.

trouble is , I am fast running out! Dont buy bin bags, as dont have enough to dispose of, so re-used carrier bags, will have to have a rethink!

I do agree however that carrier bags are just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, its all the rest of the unecessary plastic packaging they need to address, but maybe that will come soon.

That would be cool. I have problems with W****s - "Would you like a bag?" "No thanks." And then they proceed to pack my things in a plastic bag anyway. I got so fed up, I let one woman completely finish packing, then stood at the checkout and took everything out to put in my own bag. The local shop too, it seems to have become some kind of running joke that I don't have a bag off them when I fetch stuff. I've pointed out I managed to carry it around the shop, I'm sure I can make it the 10 metres home.

Although I do seem to collect bags for life because of forgetting or not taking enough out.

"We are not at all wastefull, and only put out about a bin a month for landfill, but carrier bags are not the answer to global warming, comments about being away with carrier bags I think are daft, why manufacture bin bags, when you can get your shopping home, and use them again to put your bottles in for recycling? Reduce, Re-use, Recycle, in that order is best for the planet."

Plastic bags may not be the only problem, but it is certainly something we can adjust and not use. It isnt the whole story re global warming, but if we all did even just a little bit to use less/fewer then we would be on the way. My grandmother used to say 'look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves'. That can be translated to mean, 'if each of us uses one plastic bag less, then the wolr will be a better, tidier place'.

We dont put our bin out every week and we try not to waste anything. But when the goods come packaged, what can you do? We dont have a local butcher, or even one in the town 13 miles away. If I buy meat, it comes pre-packed whether I like it or not. But I try to find alternative uses for the polystyrene trays, such as seed trays.

And I have bought biodegradeable binbags when I can get them. I know they still use energy to produce, but they dont add quite so much to the landfil problem.

It was one of the few really sensible, progressive and visible measures taken in Ireland (another was the restrictions on smoking) and both were before the Green Party got in! Both fairly tame, really but...

IIRC, an entire plastic bag factory shut down as a result of the move, just one highlight of how many so-called 'jobs' are unnecessary (competing carriers trying to deliver small items when the postman comes anyway is another example).

We re-use all bags till they're useless but we did that anyway, we didn't need a charge. Despite refusing bags for years and years, we still end up somehow with hundreds, all neatly cleaned and folded and stored, ready for use - so how many bags 'ordinary' people simply use once and throw away must be eye-watering.

greenorelse wrote:
We re-use all bags till they're useless but we did that anyway, we didn't need a charge. Despite refusing bags for years and years, we still end up somehow with hundreds, all neatly cleaned and folded and stored, ready for use - so how many bags 'ordinary' people simply use once and throw away must be eye-watering.

We're the same, especially now we're not using them as bin liners. I keep meaning to turn it into yarn for a few projects I want to do.

Not sure why a lot of us line our bins with plastic bags

As long as the bin is regularly washed out this should suffice.

Sue

Well, I say bin 'liners'... we didn't own an actual bin, no room for one at our last home, so it was shopping bag on a handle.