I wasn't keen on the carrier bag surcharge when it was first introduced. The disposable bags were handy as kitchen bin liners and sandwich bags, and indeed were re-usable within limits. Now you don't use the "bag for life" for that, you buy non re-usable bags instead. You win some, you lose some.
Germany introduced a plastic bag ban in Germany in 2022. In 2021, consumption was around 3.3 billion units, a decrease of 0.5 billion units compared to the previous year. It would be interesting to know what the exact figures look like after the introduction, since we are in 35th place 2022
According to UK-official data the number of single use plastic carrier bags was 409 million for 2022 to 2023 divided by UK population numbers, that comes out to about 6 per year. I find this a little bit unbelievable, as I expect there may be some differences in what is counted.
You'd be forgiven for thinking this is because of reduced plastic use. When we order online, e.g. from Amazon or ASOS, stuff comes wrapped in plastic. And I suspect this is higher for people in Western EU countries.
These list should distinguish between supermarket bags that we would certainly use a few times and the thin bags meat gets put in as a bag within a bag or as used by corner shops. Often single use.
Fair enough. Scotland then, before it was dragged out of the EU against its will. The Scottish Parliament passed legislation on 20 October 2014 that required all retailers (food and non-food) to charge a minimum of 10p for each new single-use carrier bag.
Gas more than oil here, and I don't disagree. The question however was about plastic bags. My state in particular is a leader in reducing single use plastic, coz our former premier was a navy guy who loved gas but HATED plastic pollution.
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#PlasticsTreaty
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I can't find it here: https://x.com/EU_Commission
Can you share the link?
Very polarizing!! So sad!!
Our Plastics Strategy aims to curb plastic waste and littering and improve the economics of plastics recycling.
🐢 Let’s make the EU cleaner and the beaches safer for turtles and other animals.
The world was using zero plastic bags for carrying groceries before 1965. Hopefully we can revert 100% to using beautiful, natural fiber based bags.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_bag
Whilst we all drive to the supermarket.
Does it only include "carrier" bags, or also bin bags?
This would surely skew the statistic as in the old days, I would re-use my plastic carrier bag in my pedal bin.
As that's no longer an option, bin-bags would contribute significantly.
I wonder about different policies / incentives in the different countries.