Potential tax on throwaway bags

[Clazza]

Hi, thought those of you that are green may be interested in the survey going on to decide whether there should be a tax on throwaway plastic bags? http://www.londoncouncils.gov.uk/doc.asp?docId=20764. You can make your opinion known.

[Ultraconsultancy]

A fantastic idea, as any Irish person will attest [no piles of them in the bin or under the sink, or blowing around the roads] as long as the fiscal income generated is ear-marked for environmental project grants back into the community.

UC

[SeanMacGabhann]

You beat me to the punchline UC.. it's one of those ideas that, post implementation, everyone wonders why it didn't happen sooner

(one of the reasons I like Ken, for all his faults, is that he leads rather than consults/procrastinates)

[Ultraconsultancy]

Rumour has it that the next two ideas for environmental taxation were chewing gum tax, and charging a penny for ATM mini-statement slips. Both would save hundreds of thousands in Westminster boroughI bet.

[SeanMacGabhann]

ATM mini slips!!!!!!

I don't mind the slips themselves it's the way people have to actually choose between:

Cash only

Cash with receipt

They choose WITH receipt and then just leave it without looking - I'll deal with that after you pal shall I??

And then people wonder why the state becomes more nannyish... freedom means responsibility for your actions people!

Phew - glad I got that off my chest

[Brendan]

Gum bugs me. It is one of my grumpy old man complaints. It fouls up the pavements all over this city. At least fag butts can be swept away.

Oh and all the Irish people I know aren't actually green. Despite what it says on wikipedia and in the high school text books. They are a kind of pinky colour and change to letterbox red when they go on holiday in Africa.

[shaman]

Hi Monica and Marilyn of SNUB whom got council funding for cloth bags for us are on BBC London Radio Today so all should feel proud here about their efforts. All should be happy to get rid of the old plastic and vote for tax worked in Eire

[Clazza]

That's what I thought - hope you all register your feelings. Great initiative.

[Jeremy]

I think that the tax should only apply for non-biodegradable bags. The same should apply for purchased refuse sacks.

[monica]

The tax will be on all bags,biodegradable or not.The tax is to discourage the use of plastic bags,the charge will hopefully stop people from using too many bags especially in the supermarkets

[Michael Palaeologus]

Good idea to my mind. France got rid of plastic bags ages ago and their retail industry does not seem to have collapsed.

[SeanMacGabhann]

This.

This is what I think everytime some some nay-sayer is interviewed on TV about Olympics, Smoking Bans, Plastic Bag taxes or in fact ANYTHINGTHATMIGHTMAKETHEWORLDABETTERPLACE...

You would think from the portrait of impending aramageddon some people are so quick to paint that these things had never been done anywhere in the world and that Britain was ONCE AGAIN the whipping boy for the rest of Europe..

[cdonline]

Where does the money go? Is it used for the environment. The answer to all our problems is not taxing it.

Not that I have an answer. Perhaps, they should continue to make the bags thinner and thinner, until we get to a point that they will carry nothing. Then perhaps we'll come up with some other solution.

As somebody who always walks to the supermarket, surely it is the car drivers whose shopping habits cause much more damage to our eco system.

[RosieH]

if people still did their shopping on the high street, there would be no need to drive to out of town supermarkets. and possibly more food would be local, though that's not guaranteed, but probably not flown in from Kenya or Peru.

surely it's not very hard to walk to the supermarket AND take your own bag? that's what I do on the occasions the fabulous retailers of ED are unable to furnish me with my comestibles. and the cupboard under my sink no longer spews forth screwed up carrier bags when I'm looking for the brasso

[SeanMacGabhann]

People seem obsessed with where their money "goes" - th ekey driver in this is not revenue but dissuasion. Don't get the bag don't pay the money and no-one gets your ill gotten gains... but the plastic stops ending up in a tree