It's a start, I don't think anybody would deny that:
Marks and Spencer is to begin charging its food shoppers for carrier bags
And hopefully, in the usual tradition of keeping up with the Jones', all of the other supermarkets will follow suit.
But it's still by no means enough.
13 billion plastic bags are given away free each year.
Each one takes an estimated 1000 years to decay.
So, although charging is good, it still doesn't get to the root of the problem - manufacturing them in the first place. Although the idea is that the amount used will decline if people have to pay, that wont stop alot of people still using them, and therefore there will still be a huge environmental problem.
And why only food bags?
'Green' steps such as this garner a lot of press coverage and are championed as a victory in getting corporations to become more socially responsible.
I am all for it, really, and these things are always a victory - M&S get special kudos for all of their efforts.
But ultimately its not solving a problem, merely masking it - the bags will be produced, people will pay, the money will be donated to an environmental charity...then guess what they will have to spend some of the money on? Yep.
Is it really that difficult to go to the source of the problem? Change what it is we use to produce bags in the first place?
There's this radical way-out there material which is far more environmentally friendly.....I believe its some kind of brown papery-card substance. They might want to look into that...
I'm not a huge fan of Americanisms, but one I hope we will all be uttering one day is
'Yep, I'm brown-bagging it today'
28/02/08 @ 13:49