London councils attempted to push through a ban on shops in the capital handing out single use carrier bags but the London Local Authorities (Shopping Bags) Bill was blocked following lobbying from the Association of Convenience Stores (ACS) and British Retail Consortium (BRC). Three MP’s blocked the bill and so now it faces the vote of the whole house of commons.
Meanwhile Walmart owned UK supermarket Asda will reduce its own food packaging by 25% by the end of 2008 under a ‘Green Rollbacks’ campaign to commence in May that will see greener packaging for many of its own brand products.The company says will save them £10 million which makes you wonder why they hadn’t done it before.
Up the hill backwards 
It is a pity as everyone soon gets used to an existance where you don’t get handed a plastic bag with every tiny item you buy. The minute people are charged for them (even when it is only about 2p) they start to bung their shopping in their pockets if they forget their reusable bag or balance it on their heads or whatever.
Islington hasn’t banned plastic bags but has announced an “amnesty” (though I’m not sure that’s the right word): hand in to them 10 plastic backs and they will give you a cotton shopping bag free.
When we go shopping, we normally take the trolley bag or for small amounts, one of the durable shopping bags we have. Even when buying odd items while out I say I don’t want a bag.
I must admit to occasionally taking plastic bag, though. They serve many uses. For rubbish, I try to use biodegradeable bags which are beconing ever more easy to obtain, though I don’t think it’s quite the perfect solution.
If the government has the courage to push through a smoking ban in all public enclosed places,it should also have the courage to impose a charge on plastic bags.
In Germany shops were forced to keep their own rubbish 17 years ago. Welcome to the the UK we are global leaders in cutting CO2 emissions I heard some prime minister say. Yeah sure!