The problem with old bags

Of all the obstacles to thwart our path to a greener life, the plastic bag takes prime position. Right up there on top of all other imaginable eco-evils. Well, almost all. There's too many of the blighters, there's no doubt about that. 50 per cent of the litter found on our coast is made up of plastic bags and the estimates of how many millions we get through in the UK every year are so wild and disturbing, I'm not even going to go there.

From your emails and comments on this blog, I know this is something that gets your goat as well as mine. I've heard a colleague call it 'bag-itis', that creeping sense of rage when more rustling plastic is thrust upon you than you could possibly need. A MORI survey last year indicated that 63 per cent of us would be happy to pay a 10p tax on bags, following the example set by Ireland (which has reduced consumption by 90 per cent). A fine idea, if you ask me. Until this happens, most of us will struggle on, trying to remember to fill our pockets with old ones before we leave home.

One restaurant owner from North Norfolk, fed up of waiting, has launched Ban the Bag. Kalba Meadows, who part-owns Terroir restaurant, is tired of fighting "bag happy local retailers". The website asks you to make a pledge promising to refuse all disposable bags you are offered in shops and instead take your own reusable ones. The other part of the deal is that you pass the pledge on to someone else.

So, what to use instead? I'm always on the look out for cheap, bright alternative shopping bags, like the stripey ones you can buy for less than 50p in the souks of Morocco - has anyone else spotted these gems? Also, I haven't seen them in the flesh yet but the silk bags on Biome Lifestyle look fun. They fold up into palm-sized squares.

I know it sounds virtuous but here in the Body&Soul office at The Times we now have a cardboard box for all our plastic bags. The idea is we grab one before nipping out to the nearby Waitrose instead of bringing new ones into circulation. It seems to be working quite well. The other option is to start a trend for wheelie bags (you know, the ones usually attached to women over sixty giving them their slang name of 'Granny trolley'). What we really need is a hot new designer to reclaim them as stylish. Anyone game?

Comments

[Kalba Meadows]

I've just discovered that Habitat have some funky bags-on-wheels for £12.99, and I have a great Rolser shopping trolley in shocking purple...

[lag2]

not cheap, but great in style! My Own Bag, folds up into a tiny pouch. http://www.myownbag.com/catalog.html

[Anna Shepard]

Since my posting about plastic bags, the supermarket monolith Tesco have announced that all its stores in the UK will use degradable bags by September this year. A trend started by Co-Op, which launched its own degrading carriers back in 2002.

I can’t say this isn’t a step in the right direction. But without meaning to sound like a total eco-grump, I can't help thinking it would be better to discourage the use of one-use only bags in the first place.

And while I'm whingeing, what about packaging? When will Tesco start taking responsibility for its very unbiodegradable mountains of plastic waste?

[Susan]

I fail to understand why we do not follow the US trend of using heavy duty paper sacks for Supermarket shopping. These are bio-degradable - unlike the so called plastic ones now being introduced here (which still take years to de-grade). I have stated collecting the paper sacks to re-use but would like to see more of them. Also why not have a day when we all remove the unnecessary packaging from our vegetables etc and leave it at the end of the check-outs?

[anna]

Why not re-use the plastic bage that we have already collected though the years? There is no need to invest in a "bag for life" or another product when all of us already have a huge collection at home. You can fold one up neatly and place inside your handbag so that you always have your own bag to use when offered one in a supermarket, a clothes shop or any other shop. When doing a larger shop, simply take a few bage with you to reuse.

[Mong Lim]

I've been re-using my old bags, leaving them in the car, pockets of coats etc for years now. However, that doesn't even come close to helping reduce the two cupboards full of shopping bags I've collected over the years, including those from clothes retailers. I'm thinking of asking my local Oxfam if they would like some free, clean bags (some designers) for their customers' purchases. Suggestions anyone?

[Jane Williams]

Try Organic Ally (www.organic-ally.co.uk)for organic cotton string bags at only £3.99 including P&P... I've got one, it weighs almost nothing & I've never yet had it so full I couldn't fit anything else in it - couldn't lift it, mind...

[Elizabeth Shaw]

Many supermarkets offer recycling facilities for carrier bags but do not say what type of plastic is suitable,perhaps because they don't want to be overwhelmed. Anyone able to say if bread bags,bags for loose fruit and veg., frozen veg. bags are the same type of plastic. Enquiries at Tesco seemed to suggest these were all Ok and Birds eye assure me their plastic is recyclable.

[Phyllis Ward]

US style brown paper grocery bags would be costly in this country, due to the natural shortage of wood pulp. They would also be quite useless to the many who walk or take public transport to do the shopping - there is no handle, and they aren't that strong, especially in the rain or when cold, wet items emit condensation. I don't know a single American who walks to the shops, no matter how close. Personally, I re-use every single carrier bag for rubbish (you can buy a special dispenser which fits inside cupboard door onto which you suspend carrier bag). I recycle everything I can, but my rubbish is mainly non-recyclable containers (PVC4,5,6). When my children were small, PVC containers were always in demand at playgroups and schools (for art and technology uses) but this isn't an option anymore. Thankfully, a lot of the soft summer fruit is coming in recyclable (PVC1,2,3) containers - check the markings before committing to the rubbish.

[Richard Angry]

It would probably help if the supermarkets followed the lead of Super-U in France who no longer provide single use bags. There you are forced to bring your own or buy their equivalent of the "bag for life" already available at Tesco, Sainsbury et al. We still regularly use our Super-U bag bought on holiday 2 years ago.

[Phil Preston]

Stop shopping at mega-marts like Sainsbury's and Tesco and use smaller supermarkets instead. Aldi doesn't have free bags - it sells very robust, rectangular cloth bags instead.

[Alice]

On supermarket plastic packaging: Sainsbury's packs a lot of its organic fruit and veg ranges in biodegradeable packaging of various kinds - the tomatoes come on a cardboard tray, like an egg box, in a biodegradeable plastic sleeve. Why only the organic range? Why not all fruit and veg and indeed everything that could sensibly be packed in cardboard? Clearly they think only those who buy organic food care about the environment in general.

[C.B.]

In the small town in the United States where I lived in the early 1990s, supermarkets gave shoppers a five-cent credit for every brown paper bag they brought in for re-use. Initially provided for free, these held probably twice as much as the plastic ones. I would keep a stash of the bags ready, banded together in the boot of our car. There was no law requiring the supermarkets to do this, and plastic carrier bags were also available.

What was most noteworthy about the practice was the sense I very rarely observe in Britain, that ends can (at least sometimes) be pursued through rewards rather than punishments, and through individual initiatives rather than legal strictures.

[Dom]

when is the government going to be responsible about the environment and introduce tax on plastic bags like in Ireland? People will then think twice about taking one at the check-out. No point in relying on irresponsible supermarkets to stop dishing them out, this is advertising for them. And making them 'bio degradable' is a joke: they will still take years to disintegrate.
I use the sturdy shopping baskets/bags, made of natural fibers, which you can buy at any market in France. They cost very little and last for years.

[chris wilcox]

I was interested to see the varied comments about plastic bags.
I lived in Belgium for several years and several of the supermarkets there don't issue them. Instead you can buy collapsible plastic crates, re usable with a multitude of uses other than grocery shopping.
I still use them today here in the uk .
No plastic carriers here Oi!

[M.C.]

I don't think there is a single solution for the bag problem. People buy different things on different shopping trips, and they transport their purchases different ways. I'm a U.S. resident and I definitely DO walk to the store for small purchases. I use the car for large ones, though.

I use a permanent canvas bag or a basket on wheels (much more attractive than a bag on wheels) when I remember to bring them. Sometimes I say I don't need a bag at all and walk out of the store with the receipt in my hand in case someone thinks I didn't pay. When those aren't options, I normally take plastic bags and then use them for trash. (Ripped bags go back to the store for recycling, along with dry cleaner bags.) Sometimes I take the paper bags people have mentioned here, which do come in a version with handles. They can be used 4-5 times,and they are the right size to bundle newspapers for recycling -- if anyone still gets news on paper. They can also be cut up to wrap packages or cover books, and my town's recycling program will take them along with newspaper and cardboard boxes.

None of this has anything to do with financial incentives. It's just habit, good local recycling options, and my irritation at using perfectly good cupboard space to store old bags. A huge mass of them jumped out at me one day when I opened the door, so I decided to cut back.

(Now if I could only get a friend of mine to get rid of the hundreds of old yogurt containers she keeps around "just in case.")

[Denise]

I love my jute bag that I bought from Summerbags.co.uk. Takes all my swimming gear and the weekly shop. Even took it to the beach this year!! Summerbags say their stuff is ethical and biodegradable too but what I do know is that it is a lot more stylish than a plastic carrier and is admired even by the checkout girls`!!! http://www.summerbags.co.uk

[Rosy Leader]

I am happy to see that something is being done in this country about those horrible plastic bags. What I think is even better is the fact that the cloth re-usable bag is becoming a fashion statement, encouraging the most fashion concious of us to remember it as we leave the house for the supermarket. I recently ordered a dress from my-wardrobe.com, an online boutique who offer a lovely cloth bag for only an extra pound, as it's stylish and practical I use it all the time for my groceries, I think bigger companies such as Tescos should take this on board and ban plastic bags all together.

[Gregory]

why has someone not turned the heavy duty bag for life into a fashionable outfit after it has fufulled it't intended purpose. I know that it might make you sweat a bit but after a while of wearing it you get used to it and forget that you are wearing it. Is it not the same with thoes pvc macs that you regret buying but after wearing it a while you forget that you are wareing it and you change your mind and think that they the macs are the best thing since sliced bread.