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Saving the planet, one box at a time


Happy Jack

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24 minutes ago, tauzero said:

Apparently their use has dropped by 86% from the big 7 supermarkets, so it has had an impact. I was surprised.

Apparently it's not quite as straightforward as as that.

https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/plastic-bag-for-life-waste-5p-charge-michael-gove-iceland-tesco-pollution-a8699441.html

In brief, whilst the sale of 'official' 5p 'single use' bags has indeed fallen significantly, the sale of 10p 'bags for life ' which contain twice as much plastic has risen exponentially, presumably because people are only reusing each bag a couple of times at most.

So the 86% reduction in the number of 5p bags being bought doesn't reflect anything close to an 86% reduction in the amount of plastic from shopping bags being thrown away each year.

Edited by Cato
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3 minutes ago, Cato said:

Apparently it's not quite as straightforward as as that.

https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/plastic-bag-for-life-waste-5p-charge-michael-gove-iceland-tesco-pollution-a8699441.html

In brief, whilst the sale of 'official' 5p 'single use' bags has indeed fallen significantly, the sale 10p 'bags for life ' which contain twice as much plastic has risen exponentially, presumably because people are only reusing each bag a couple of times at most.

So the 86% reduction in the number of 5p bags being bought doesn't reflect anything close to an 86% reduction in the amount of plastic from shopping bags being thrown away each year.

Ah. That doesn't seem to have turned out as planned.

I know my memory isn't what it was, but before the 5p charge for carriers, weren't the bag for life type bags quite a bit more expensive? 50p or £1? If they were pushed back up to that price, they might get used more as long-term bags instead of single use. And maybe they're being re-purposed - single use ones finish up as bin bags, but looking round, I have one bag for life holding bubble wrap for re-use, and another holding documents which need to be shredded. So, have all those extra bags for life finished up in landfill (or the ocean), or are they lurking in homes, waiting to be reused?

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I recently got a small tomato knife shipped to me in a box about the size of that in the OP. No 2kg out of date catalogue, though. 

6 hours ago, fleabag said:

Apart from all the planet choking packing above, one thing that irked me was when the caring uk Gov made all shops charge 5p for a plastic bag, for the hard of thinking, who often dont take their own. Barely anyone would care at forking out 5p. If they'd made that price £1, maybe it would have made a much bigger difference.

It's not a mental challenge to take reusable bags. If an idiot like me , who's been using the same bags for 7 or 8 years can manage it, anyone can

Just the other day I stuck a note on the inside of my front door that says "BRING A BAG" because I always manage to forget it. 

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4 hours ago, fleabag said:

Still, i would like to see them rise to £1

A pound!? What about good folks who usually remember their shoppers, but forget occasionally?

That seems harsh, plus, at £1 a go, you'd have touts selling 2nd hand ones outside for 50p. 😁

We could also be mugged or burgled for our carriers... :facepalm:

Edited by Ricky 4000
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34 minutes ago, ZilchWoolham said:

Just the other day I stuck a note on the inside of my front door that says "BRING A BAG" because I always manage to forget it. 

Immediately after replying to fleabag, I took two bags for life out to the car to sit in the boot until needed. Mrs Zero does that anyway. Now all I need to do is remember them to take them out of the boot if I go shopping.

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5 minutes ago, fleabag said:

The reason for them being £1 is that more people would likely stop forgetting to take bags. The more something costs, the more likely you are to take note.

Like i said, 5p doesnt bother anyone that much

Psychology No.1

Faulty logic.

We all forget or lose something from time to time.

You're being a heartless bastard. 😁 

No, actually, I reflected on it, and you're right. 😎

Edited by Ricky 4000
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2 minutes ago, fleabag said:

The reason for them being £1 is that more people would likely stop forgetting to take bags. The more something costs, the more likely you are to take note.

Like i said, 5p doesnt bother anyone that much

Psychology No.1

With that £1 per bag (I'd agree with pushing up the price, not sure how far), what would you see as the ideal ratio of cost of single-use to bag-for-life? If you make bag-for-lifes (say) a fiver, that discourages people from using them as a big monthly shop could use five or so (and for environmental friendliness, presumably we should keep shopping trips to a minimum). If you make them the same price as single-use, with that price being £1-£2, would people move to bags for life and actually reuse them properly? Counter-intuitively, what about single-use bags being more expensive than bags for life?

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I'm not sure really .. the bags i have been using for years ,  1 was from M&S and 1 from Aldis.  The M&S one is a kind of rafia or something, part plastic maybe, but incredibly tough and i still use it after many years, and the Aldis one seems to be mad of a sack like material and just as sturdy , thought the M&S rafia seems to be the toughest.  I got given them both, so dont know what they cost originally.  Maybe they were giving them away ?

But pricing . ...one use v lifebag.  Tricky

Edited by fleabag
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9 minutes ago, fleabag said:

I'm not sure really .. the bags i have been using for years ,  1 was from M&S and 1 from Aldis.  The M&S one is a kind of rafia or something, part plasict maybe, but incredibly tough and i still use it after many years, and the Aldis one seems to be mad of a sack like material and just as sturdy , thought the M&S rafia seems to be the toughest.  I got given them both, so dont know what they cost originally.  Maybe they were giving them away ?

But pricing . ...one use v lifebag.  Tricky

Isn't it just. After all, we have bin bags, which are about the same plastic content as single-use bags - should a single-use bag be more costly than a bin-bag, as it'll probably get used as one, so it's environmentally equivalent? Would the simplest solution be to abolish the single-use bag and price long-life bags high enough to encourage their re-use but low enough to not be cripplingly expensive?

Many years ago, the local Co-op used single-use carrier bags which were made from some sort of starch so they were biodegradable. A very good idea (unless you tried keeping stuff in one for a few years). I don't know why that stopped - perhaps the manufacturing process was more expensive, but the answer to that would be to make the price of a biodegradable carrier bag the same as the manufacturer charges to supply it, and abolish the environmentally permanent plastic bag.

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Its a minefield for sure.  Refuse bin bags - a huge deal.

The council here gave out degradeable plastic bags for our food waste.  Trouble was, they lasted a few days.  I maybe managed to get a bit of veg and fruit cores in before it disintegrated. I simply wasn't throwing away food waste quick enough. So the bags, though a good idea for maybe a big family that could fill them in a couple of days, they were no good for me who would only be throwing food waste every couple of weeks.

Nowdays, i use a 5 gallon plastic bucket with a lid.  It came from a bucket of bird feed balls i bought for the birds here, and when empty, decided to keep it in case i could make use of it... and i did  :)      The lid came in handy. Man, waste food stinks

 

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