Paying for carrier bags

[luciemule]

Just out of curiosity, would you still carry on using your main supermarket (say Tesco, or Sainsbury's) if they stopped giving you any carrier bags and said you either had to pay for them or use another method (eg -boxes or jute bags).

Would you simply go to a supermarket that didn't charge for them or go with the flow?

What do you think would happen if they banned non-enviromentally friendly packaging and bags completely?

Strictly speaking excess packaging is banned.
It's just not enforced, because of the ested interests, and the way that consumers will only support token trivia like carrier bag taxes.
Anything that really put up prices, or stopped them buying what they wanted would just die.

It also depends what you mean by "non-environmentally friendly". I think you and I might roughly agree on what that means, but there is zero chance of that being the definition.

"friendly" would mean "made by a large European company, preferably French", if done by the EU.
If done by the British govt it would be whatever suited the supermarkets.
And of course there would be stuff to protect bloated British and EU farmers.

Packaged fruit is a big offender, yet without heavy packaging you would have a lot more damaged and inedible.
The environmentally sound approach must therefore be to abandon fruit that needs heavy packaging.
That's not going to happen, it would hurt farmers which is politically impossible, and the supermarkets would resist heavily, as would consumers.

From a previous post "It makes me laugh at the horrified looks you get from shop assistants when you say, "I don't need a bag, thanks." As someone with a p/t job in retail it makes me when people request a bag for every item and for several children in the same family when they want to "carry their own" toys/sweets/pencils!! I definitely think we should charge for carrier bags, and if you should tell this shop assistant that you don't need a bag you certainly won't get anything other than a very warm smile!

I just wonder what will happen in 500 years time when the equivilent of Time Team turn up for a dig and find millions of disposable nappies and plastic bags as lets face it we even put our rubbish in one before we throw it out.

Personally I use so called bio degradable bin bags, but I'm not so sure they will rot down in those conditions.

so yes, Soupdragon you are spot on, make it law to manufacture all plastic bags from corn based ones and be done with the whole shebang.

They will probably be mining rubbish tips by then. Already some of the most profitable mines for gold and silver are actually waste from earlier times when the extraction technology was more primitive.

Thus "Pirates of the Caribbean 117" will be "The lost waste tip of Basingstoke".

I have had my Superquinn cloth bags for years now and they are still as good as new. And if I forget them, because supermarkets here don't stock cheap bags anymore, I have to load the shopping back into the trolley, unload the trolley into the boot of the car and unload the car item by item when I get home. As a result I rarely forget my bags! I agree with Dominic that the plastic bags are only a small part of the packaging but a step in the right direction is better than nothing.

LOL cat64! Last week I said Chestnut trees grew from acorns! Dh hasn't let me forget it!

"Packaged fruit is a big offender, yet without heavy packaging you would have a lot more damaged and inedible.
The environmentally sound approach must therefore be to abandon fruit that needs heavy packaging. "

Well, no. The packaging could easily be made from corn plastic, recycled paper/cardboard and other biodegradable/compostable substances. It really isn't difficult. Obviously there's more to enviromental damage than plastic filled landfills. I don't know just how enviromentally sound the manufacturing process is but take Belu water which is in corn or glass bottles, it's UK water and the company neutralises its carbon footprint with, erm, tree planting I guess - I can't remember off hand. It's probably not 100% but a whole lot better than Evian. I don't buy bottled water much, tap is fine for Dragons , but on the occasions for when I need it, I have this in my fridge.

This is what I say SoupDragon. How can the organic stuff in Sainsburys be biodegradable nice ardboard trays and compostable plastic. But the non organic is in plastic. Why can't they put it all in cardboard trays, surely it can't be much difference in price for the packaging? maybe that is why organic is more expensive

That's a valid point, most packaging seems to be pretty much bog standard plastic.
When I was a kid most soft fruit came in low grade cardboard, which probably rots quite quickly.

I'm not sure plastic is such a big pollluter in landfill, it takes a very long time to rot, and just sits there. In the low-oxygen environment of a landfill, my guess is thousands of years, possibly tens of thousands.

To me the main term is the resources consumed. Farmed plastics are coming but slowly.

Tree planting is endorsed by the BBC, which is enough to make me question whether it really counts as "carbon neutral".

Trees die, they then rot and get turned back into CO2, or are used as fuel (CO2 again), or get turned into some wood product which usually rots and gets turned back into CO2 after a longer period.

Ironically the only way I can think of using trees to take CO2 out of the air properly is to turn it into paper packaging, and bury it so deep in a landfill that it takes thousands of years to rot.

I think I would go to a supermarket that did this. I always bring my own carrier bags and I think they should stop handing out plastic bags the way they do. Its such a waste

PPP I accept you will, but the evidence from the Co-Op's pathetic market share is that the environment and fairtrade are not only below recycling but below the cool logos used by the bigger chains.

I don't very often shop at supermarkets anyway. Why did they do away with paper bags? I always prefered them anyway. You can get more in them.

I generally take my reusable bags when I go to the supermarket, and I think they should charge.

I also think they should look at other ways to deliver home delivery stuff other than in MILLIONS of bags, when you would have only used 3 yourslef.

I hate the way the till operators fluff up loads of plastic bags for each customer even when they can SEE you have your own.

DC, don't you think the low turn out at a co-op has more to do with a convenience factor? I can by from Tesco because I can do it online, it's open (almost) whenever I want it to be, and the price is often better than it's competitors.

I think we are overlooking the pollution that is generated at paper mills. They are not exactly environmentally friendly. We have to remember the process involved in creating the packaging and not just the packaging itself. I think paper products and plastic one are fairly comparable in terms of damageto the environment.

This is a bit old (1990) but I think the math is still valid (although recycling rates may have changed a bit).

paper vs plastic bags

"the evidence from the Co-Op's pathetic market share is that the environment and fairtrade are not only below recycling but below the cool logos used by the bigger chains"

Or it may be that the Co-Op are horrid miserable stores staffed by miserable people. Certainly all the ones I've been in are. I always want to shout "A smile costs NOTHING!" at the staff. They always seem to have a poor range of products too.

Something which occurred to me this morning is that they should slap an Environmental Charge onto packaged items. Refundable if you return the packaging for recycling/reuse. Anyone else old enough to remember the refundable deposit on glass bottles??

Here in Ireland if you get your shopping delivered the crates are lined with large clear plastic liners, still annoying but not as bad as loads of little bags

Soupdragon and eleusis are right, I wish they weren't but they are.
Convenience, slightly lower prices and cheerful staff trump fairtrade and organic big time.

Thing is, I can get fairtrade and organic from Tescos and not be faced by surly staff who object to me interrupting their day with my custom. Also, Co-op are not better wrt packaging etc than anyone else. I think. Can't say I venture in there often.

Why are they so surly in Co-op then? Re they paid poorly? Do they have worse working conditions?