UK (or parts thereof) to ban free plastic bags?

[Impartial_Eclipse]

5p? Buttons!

UTV News - Plastic bag levy for NI announced

Northern Ireland to bring in 5p plastic bag tax from 2013 | Environment | The Guardian

[blokesbloke]

The various governments, assemblies and parliaments of the UK have dithered about this for so long that it'll be a moot point anyway soon - more and more stores are introducing their own charges for plastic bags - purely in the interests of the environment of course - in the UK.

So something every customer used to expect to get for free they now have to buy, making the store a nice profit.

Of the stores which do still give away plastic bags, many of them use bags of such crap quality (again, for environmental reasons because they use less plastic per bag of course) that they split within 5 minutes if you put much more than a bag of marshmallows in them.

How did the tax work out in Ireland? You've had it for a long time - do you support it? Has it improved the litter situation?

I do tend to take my own bags if I'm going shopping but sometimes if I'm not specifically going out shopping I might see something in a window or something. I don't mind paying for a bag but I expect it to be able to get my item home without it splitting and I hate it when the store pompously tells me they're charging me for it for my own good because I'm an eco-vandal!

I do re-use bags and I think the thicker ones are much more eco-friendly because they can be re-used dozens of times, whereas the thin ones can barely be used once - and some sympathetic shop assistants who know their bags are now crap - are double-bagging heavier items, which defeats the "green" point of making them thinner in the first place.

[blokesbloke]

I've just realised I'm posting about plastic carrier bags on a political forum at 2.52am.

I'd rather not consider what this says about my life, or lack of one.

Pity me.