It’s been over two years since the government began mandating charges for plastic carry bags at supermarkets and other shops.
The move has been a big success with around 80 per cent drop in demand from shoppers although it should really be closer to 100 per cent by now.
Yesterday the cabinet went a step further and approved an amendment to the packaging legislation to ban plastic carry bags outright.
It has yet to be passed by the House, but the amendment is not likely to run into any resistance. It’s very difficult to argue against saving the planet even if many people will lose their jobs along the way, but it’s going to happen more and more in the coming months and years.
Right now, the special interest groups who might normally be out protesting against the juggernaut of green deals coming our way, or MPs ‘championing the little guy’, or big business depending on where the most votes lie, are distracted by the pandemic. In the words of a British political adviser during 9/11, ‘it’s a good time to bury bad news’.
But that’s a different debate about what is yet to come in terms of the jobs that will be lost to automation and the green revolution.
For now, there is no doubt that plastic carry bags really are a totally unnecessary evil. Anyone who ever went grocery shopping with their parents or grandparents before the 1980s remembers that no one left home without their own reusable bags. Butter, cheese and meat were wrapped in paper, and drinks, including milk came in returnable glass bottles. It was not a hardship to live this way.
In fact, the older generations could teach younger people who have taken on environmentalism as their raison d’etre a thing or two about recycling. Who these days has their shoes mended or their socks darned for instance?
The problem with plastic though is there is so much of it that it will take a huge effort to minimise or eliminate its usage. Almost every food we buy is pre-packaged in plastic and every hygiene product, and along with plastic water bottles, the worst items are individually wrapped portions of everything from ketchup to coffee in restaurants, hotels and airports.
Unfortunately, the pandemic has now no doubt boosted those industries with consumers being so germ conscious. On top of that there are now millions of disposable face masks and gloves being thrown away every day.
Also, at the same time as efforts are being made to reduce usage, some food industries have begun only in recent years, selling salad leaves in plastic bags, again for our convenience. It’s really not that hard to wash a head of lettuce.
Now that the government has taken on the challenge by outright banning plastic bags, they will need to take on, not just consumer habits, but also the food industry if they want to make a real change.
