to think Nigeria has the right idea on plastic bags

[DonkeyHohtay]

Proposal to ban them. Any retailer providing plastic bags faces up to 3 years in prison, £1000 fine, or both.

saharareporters.com/2019/05/24/vote-plastic-ban-nigeria-chinedu-asadu

None of this messing about with "oh please don't use plastic bags, we'll have to charge you 5p" nonsense. Outright ban. (assuming this applies to single use plastic bags, not the durable woven ones).

What a great idea.

You don't really need bags for your veg at all. We do "scan and go" so just plonk 5 onions or whatever on the scales, scan the paper label and put the loose onions straight into the reusable bag.

I agree that the issue is much bigger than just carrier bags, but easy wins have to be a good thing.

Yes I remember all the high street Greengrocers used to sell their fruit in paper bags.

It was the same with most shops. Plastic carrier bags were quite rare (1970s).

Also, milk came in glass bottles, as did fizzy drinks and had a small deposit (written on the cap) which you'd get back when you returned the empty bottles.

I agree with PPs - we need to massively cut down on our use of unnecessary plastic, reuse it time and time again and, even more importantly, do whatever we need to in order to clamp down on its reckless and dangerous disposal when it really is of no more use (ideally through recycling as much as we possibly can find ways of doing so). I would certainly be in favour of punishing people for irresponsible disposal of used plastic.

However, the idea that many have of simply getting banishing all plastic altogether is completely incompatible with modern life and very naive indeed. Plastic is a fantastic, amazingly useful material and is not evil of itself - we just need to consume and eventually dispose of it responsibly.

Some people have jumped on an absurd bandwagon about the very existence of plastic. Taken to logical conclusions, I get the impression that some people would treat a violent criminal holding up a bank with a machete secreted in a plastic supermarket bag as having committed twice as serious a crime than if the'y used a paper bag.

Agree with pp. Plastic bags are so the tip of the iceberg. I never know how to react when people talk like OP's message. On the one hand, it's great, yes these things should be banned. On the other, I know that it's such a piffling gesture I can help but be scornful. Like with the plastic straws campaign and self-righteous go over to the bar and lecture the staff about the straws...all smacks of a showy eco concern, bit like having a compost heap. If we got behind a campaign to ban straws and bags, we would all pat ourselves on the back and complement ourselves that every little counts etc.

Sorry just venting and letting some cynicism out in the world. I would support OP's policy :) (I'd go a whole sight further if I ruled the world)

No, that’s policy is nuts.

I agree WeBuiltThisBuffet. This is not a simple issue and the research into the environmental impact of plastic bags over their life cycle is inconclusive.

There will unintended consequences to this well-meaning action, and although it seems like an “easy win”, I can guarantee that it won’t be.

I’m interested to know if you OP have considered:

What will replace plastic bags?

What will the environmental impact of that replacement? For example some studies have indicated that paper bags have a higher carbon footprint than plastic bags, because more energy is needed to produce and transport paper bags.

Plastic bags have a secondary useage: people use them to put rubbish in. They use less plastic than garbage bags. Isn’t it better that people use, for example, use a plastic bag to line their bathroom bin rather than a small garbage bag?

I’m not saying that plastic useage isn’t a problem but you have to be really careful with this issue. Just because something “feels” right doesn’t mean the evidence bears that out. Witness the way in which we were advised to change over to diesel, and the unintended consequences of that.

Giving them out with purchases in a shop, or even charging customers for them in a shop will be a crime. Don't have a problem with that at all.

You have no problem with poor shop owners, and market stall holders, many of them very poor women, going to prison for giving a bag? Have you been to sub-Saharan Africa? Do you know what shops can look like there? I mean there are big, fancy shops but mostly there's tiny stalls.

So because there's a lot more going on in terms of single use plastics we should just shrug our shoulders about carrier bags and crack on using them and chucking them in rivers and so on?

I'm in two minds about this. I do try to buy mushrooms and cucumber without plastic but then they go off in a couple of days instead of a week or two. So we're wasting food instead.

I don't know about the weather in Nigeria, but in the UK it rains quite a lot so people are going to have their paper bags collapsing all over the place.

It's not just plastic bags. Why not ban plastic drinks bottles and only sell drinks in cans?

What are they going to do about all the stuff that is massively overpackaged? Or totally unnecessary tat like plastic decorations and novelty items sold in UK supermarkets for every spurious 'celebration event'

Plastic wrapped junk mail and charity bags that come through the letter box.

Other food that is sold in packaging that's hard to recycle.

The list is endless and I'm not sure that they're focussing on the right thing. Are we supposed to put all our rubbish in our bins unwrapped to leave it there stinking for a fortnight before it is emptied? Are we all going to have to end up having our bins cleaned?

I agree with a lot of the latter posters. I saw a talk on sustainable design on TED a while ago. The speaker, a designer, said she was constantly getting asked to design products that were "more sustainable" - and paper bags rather than plastic bags for shops were one of the favourites. But her research showed that unless the user has access to and disposes of the paper bag into a paper recycling scheme, the paper bags actually have a greater carbon footprint than plastic ones.

The companies still wanted the though - they really just wanted to look as if they were taking it seriously.

Oops - posted too soon. Her overall point was that unless you look at and redesign the whole system, these single gestures - even if they have the appearance of being "greener" - they don't achieve anything much.

Anyone following Nigeria’s lead in matters of law must be off their fucking tits

love that the Philippians (i believe correct me if wrong) is sending back shipping containers of garbage back to Canada.
garbage that was sent there (possibly initially meant as "recyclable")
either way i huge change in packaging is necessary globally.
i would almost like to leave packaging at the point of purchase. especially that heavy duty plastic that requires a pocket knife to open a silly small item encased in it.

Not sure about the jail bit but an outright ban sounds good. Single use plastic isn't needed, paper ones should work and then either re use or straight in the paper recycle box.

Paper bags aren't needed in most cases either though. We need to get out of the idea that when you buy something it needs to be sold in a bag, or you put it in a bag. We don't need clothes, fruit or anything else in a bag. Loose apples, potatoes, bread etc in a reusable bag or basket is fine. If you're going clothes or shoe shopping, take bags.

there isn't much that Nigeria will have the right idea on, so it's good to hear there is something.

I wish shop assistants would stop asking "do you want a bag?". It's been nearly 8 years we've had to pay for a single use bag and people should have got their shit together by now to remember to take a bag if they are going shopping and shops shouldn't be encouraging the customer to buy one.

People would soon remember their reusable bags if there was a complete ban.

I think you underestimate my forgetfulness

However I do agree with you! And I agree with the fine, but not the prison sentence as that would cause wider issues imo

I agree the U.K. needs to get stricter. There are lots of things that could be done relatively easily.

I'm in Europe and I agree with Graphista that getting rid of plastic seems to be higher on the agenda here. I'm pretty sure they stopped giving out plastic bags in shops 15 years ago in Germany and
France. Taking a reusable bag to the supermarket quickly becomes second nature and there is no option to buy a cheap plastic bag at the till - paper ones are 30c and the reusable ones are about €1.50, so you think twice about buying one every time! Recycling is stricter in many European countries too and there are incentives - for example in our part of France we are charged 65c per (small) sack of household rubbish but recycling is free. Our local organic shop has recently installed a recycling bin for hard-to-recycle plastics such as film/food packaging, eg biscuit wrappers and crisp packets. The fruit and veg bags in supermarkets are now made of that cellulose stuff mentioned about, or paper.

BlooDeBloop why is having a compost heap 'showy eco concern'? I suppose it might be if you live in a flat and use your car parking space for compost We use our compost heap for fruit and veg peelings (cuts down the cost of our household waste, see above) and garden waste (saves trips to the recycling centre). If we remember to stir it occasionally we get compost that we can use on our garden for growing next year's produce. I have a little lidded box on the kitchen windowsill that I put the peelings into as I go, and I empty it into the garden compost when it's full. All seems very practical to me.

I'd like to see a ban on plastic packaging used in business, shops and industry. Why is there nothing being done about that?

I want bags to put my food in as trolleys aren't clean. Waitrose use compostable bags for their fruit and veg.

Doobigetta - they don't NEED to be plastic though there are several perfectly good alternatives.

Again when living in Europe we got free bin bags from the council that appeared plastic like and worked that way but were made from biodegradable materials.

Kazzy - how do you know we're not already reducing our use of other plastics too?

I also would much prefer card and paper containers for fruit and veg and other food where needed, with mushrooms plastic makes them go off really quickly ridiculous using plastic for them! I have a wee jute bag for mushrooms.

WorraLiberty I also grew up in the 70's I'd much prefer we went back to glass bottles, jars, paper bags etc milk tastes rotten now and I'm sure that's partly due to plastic containers.

MountainDweller yep recycling was much stricter BUT more importantly there was proper support for it! We had I think 4-5 different bins for different categories and almost everything COULD be/WAS recycled by the council from kerbside collections, such that if we had even a carrier bags worth (as a guide size/amount) of landfill/non-recyclable rubbish a fortnight that was unusual.

It's now almost 20 years later and my local council only recycles paper, card, some recyclable plastics and some metal! They kerb recycled glass for a short while but abandoned that as certain types were raiding the glass bins and using the items for weapons! They don't/won't recycle food, and only recycle garden waste in the summer! As a result most people if they recycle at all its minimal and most waste is in black/landfill bins.

"I want bags to put my food in as trolleys aren't clean." Why can't you use reusable or biodegradable ones for this? Or even (another thing I noticed in Europe) reusable crates - these might be plastic but would be reused many times or some used wooden or wicker crates.

When Aldi and lidl first came here and people were confused by the fast till system I explained to several people that it's because in Europe people don't pack at the till - that's why there's a counter opposite the bank of tills for people to move there and arrange their shopping how they wished.

There were often (as used to be the case in uk - I'm sure worraliberty remembers too - the cardboard boxes that the goods had been delivered to the supermarket in and veg crates for people to use free if they wished.

My mum used to work in supermarkets when we were growing up, dad was army and when we knew we were moving again mum would give colleagues a heads up and they'd save sturdy boxes and crates for her to use for moving!

What happens now is all those boxes are folded/collapsed - wrapped in a shit load of plastic! And then sent to recycling centres! Bonkers!

Would be far better for shops to let customers re-use them (at least once, I'm sure many customers would reuse them several times).

It's not that long ago that supermarkets had piles of cardboard boxes by the tills so you could put your shopping in them to carry away. They all seem to have stopped doing that. Shame - it was a good way of reusing them.

Kenya has already done this. We're moving there in July and have had to be careful how we pack our belongings etc. Even tiny bags. I cannot wait to be in a country that is at least trying to take this seriously - obviously imposing laws can be harder than writing them.

love that the Philippians (i believe correct me if wrong) is sending back shipping containers of garbage back to Canada.

Yes, and I think to the UK as well.

Brilliant news from Nigeria, we need to do that too.

Just to add. I use fabric bags made of old scraps right now. I shop at the market as much as possible to reduce plastic. I carry a water bottle everywhere and fill it up when I can. I use metal straws etc. I'm trying to make the move to solid shampoo bars etc but that's harder for me. I actually have to argue with shopkeepers who insist on giving me plastic bags. That's the thing that really gets my goat. So yes, I'm going to cheer minor wins. Sustainable living is about everyone doing it imperfectly, not about a few people doing it perfectly.