Scotland is fortunate to have media that have taken cognizance of the harm that plastic bags do to the environment. The Edinburgh Evening News has taken up this issue and launched a 6 week campaign through the city's major supermarkets to encourage more shoppers to buy stronger re-usable bags costing a few pence each. The campaign is being spearheaded by the environmental group Waste and Resource Action Programme, with Edinburgh chosen as one of two UK cities to pilot the scheme. If it is successful and enough shoppers are persuaded to switch it may be rolled out to other cities. A 10p tax on plastic bags is under discussion at the moment. Such a bag tax would raise an estimated £450,000 each year. Across the Irish Sea the "plastax" as it has become known has seen the demand for plastic bags fall by a staggering 90 per cent. The problem is gigantic. In the UK alone supermarkets give away 17.5 billion of them a year, with the average shopper taking home around seven each week. Six out of ten shoppers in Edinburgh arrive at supermarkets and shops expecting to be given free bags to ferry the shopping home. Most inevitably end up in the dustbin and ultimately find their way to a landfill site where this buried rubbish will take more than 100 years to decompose. Until the late 70’s no one gave away plastic bags - and everyone either managed with a paper bag or carried a tote. The world chugged along just fine and folks shopped as enthusiastically as they do today. The doomsday types claim folks will stop shopping if they aren’t given free plastic bags. Utter nonsense. Check with the folks in Ireland. Have they all closed up shop and gone home? Are you kidding?
Plastic bags are just a habit. If they aren’t available, people will not even think of them. That babe who needs a new outfit for next Saturday is going to buy that outfit. You think she goes shopping because she gets a free shopping bag? Especially when she can carry her shopping home in a lovely reusable cloth bag; the type you’ll see at
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