1.618034
Well-Known Member
*BUMP*
I thought I'd recycle an old thread, rather than start a new one... -)
Apparently "Bags For Life" are actually making the plastic problem worse! FFS
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...-making-plastic-problem-worse-say-campaigners
Article regarding this pretty damning report...
https://eia-international.org/wp-content/uploads/Checking-Out-on-Plastics-2-report-embargoed.pdf
Plastic “bags for life” should be banned or raised in price, campaigners say, as new figures reveal a surge in the bags is fuelling a rise in the plastic packaging footprint of leading supermarkets.
Despite high profile promises by the country’s best known supermarkets to tackle the amount of plastic waste they create, their plastic footprint continues to rise, according to research from the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and Greenpeace.
In 2018, supermarkets put an estimated 903,000 tonnes of plastic packaging onto the market, an increase of 17,000 tonnes on the 2017 footprint.
The surge is fuelled in part by a huge rise in the sale of “bags for life” by 26% to 1.5bn, or 54 bags per household.
Seven out of the top 10 supermarkets increased their plastic footprint year-on-year. Only Waitrose, Tesco and Sainsbury’s achieved reductions, and those were marginal, the report said.
The report is calling for a ban on bags for life, or a rise in price to at least 70p to cut the plastic mountain which is fuelling pollution.
Juliet Phillips, an ocean campaigner at EIA, said: “It’s shocking to see that despite unprecedented awareness of the pollution crisis, the amount of single-use plastic used by the UK’s biggest supermarkets has actually increased in the past year.
“Grocery retailers need to tighten up targets to drive real reductions in single-use packaging and items. We need to address our throwaway culture at root through systems change, not materials change – substituting one single-use material for another is not the solution.”
The report praised innovations like Waitrose’s experiment with refillables in its Oxford store, where more than 160 items of loose fruit and vegetables and 48 other products are available for customers to refill, including pasta and grains, coffee, frozen fruit, beer, wine and cleaning products.
“Feedback to date has been overwhelmingly positive. Analysis from the 11-week trial has provided ‘confidence that the concept can be a success elsewhere’ and the company is now rolling out the concept to three additional stores,” the report said.
Recommendations for policy-makers
We urge policy-makers to adopt and implement ambitious legislation to ensure a rapid reduction in plastic waste, including:
- Introducing legally binding reduction and reuse targets for packaging, reducing single- use plastic packaging by at least 50% by 2025.
- Using Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) packaging reform to ensure that producers cover the full costs associated with the items they place on the market, with fees set to incentivise design for reduction and reuse, as well as recyclability.
- Introducing an all-inclusive Deposit Return Scheme covering all materials and formats (including glass), designed to enable reuse as well as recycling.
- Banning single-use plastic bags and plastic ‘bags for life’ (or increase the minimum price to at least 70p) as well as other unnecessary single-use items such as cutlery and coffee cups.
- Introducing taxes and charges to disincentivise the use of any virgin materials in packaging applications.
- Phasing out overseas exports of packaging waste and banning waste incineration as false solutions to addressing the UK’s lack of domestic recycling capacity.
- Introducing EPR schemes for agriplastics and fishing gear.
- Extending the UK microbead ban to cover intentionally added microplastics in all household and industrial applications.
I thought I'd recycle an old thread, rather than start a new one... -)
Apparently "Bags For Life" are actually making the plastic problem worse! FFS
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...-making-plastic-problem-worse-say-campaigners
Article regarding this pretty damning report...
https://eia-international.org/wp-content/uploads/Checking-Out-on-Plastics-2-report-embargoed.pdf
Plastic “bags for life” should be banned or raised in price, campaigners say, as new figures reveal a surge in the bags is fuelling a rise in the plastic packaging footprint of leading supermarkets.
Despite high profile promises by the country’s best known supermarkets to tackle the amount of plastic waste they create, their plastic footprint continues to rise, according to research from the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and Greenpeace.
In 2018, supermarkets put an estimated 903,000 tonnes of plastic packaging onto the market, an increase of 17,000 tonnes on the 2017 footprint.
The surge is fuelled in part by a huge rise in the sale of “bags for life” by 26% to 1.5bn, or 54 bags per household.
Seven out of the top 10 supermarkets increased their plastic footprint year-on-year. Only Waitrose, Tesco and Sainsbury’s achieved reductions, and those were marginal, the report said.
The report is calling for a ban on bags for life, or a rise in price to at least 70p to cut the plastic mountain which is fuelling pollution.
Juliet Phillips, an ocean campaigner at EIA, said: “It’s shocking to see that despite unprecedented awareness of the pollution crisis, the amount of single-use plastic used by the UK’s biggest supermarkets has actually increased in the past year.
“Grocery retailers need to tighten up targets to drive real reductions in single-use packaging and items. We need to address our throwaway culture at root through systems change, not materials change – substituting one single-use material for another is not the solution.”
The report praised innovations like Waitrose’s experiment with refillables in its Oxford store, where more than 160 items of loose fruit and vegetables and 48 other products are available for customers to refill, including pasta and grains, coffee, frozen fruit, beer, wine and cleaning products.
“Feedback to date has been overwhelmingly positive. Analysis from the 11-week trial has provided ‘confidence that the concept can be a success elsewhere’ and the company is now rolling out the concept to three additional stores,” the report said.
Recommendations for policy-makers
We urge policy-makers to adopt and implement ambitious legislation to ensure a rapid reduction in plastic waste, including:
- Introducing legally binding reduction and reuse targets for packaging, reducing single- use plastic packaging by at least 50% by 2025.
- Using Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) packaging reform to ensure that producers cover the full costs associated with the items they place on the market, with fees set to incentivise design for reduction and reuse, as well as recyclability.
- Introducing an all-inclusive Deposit Return Scheme covering all materials and formats (including glass), designed to enable reuse as well as recycling.
- Banning single-use plastic bags and plastic ‘bags for life’ (or increase the minimum price to at least 70p) as well as other unnecessary single-use items such as cutlery and coffee cups.
- Introducing taxes and charges to disincentivise the use of any virgin materials in packaging applications.
- Phasing out overseas exports of packaging waste and banning waste incineration as false solutions to addressing the UK’s lack of domestic recycling capacity.
- Introducing EPR schemes for agriplastics and fishing gear.
- Extending the UK microbead ban to cover intentionally added microplastics in all household and industrial applications.