I caught a partial item regarding plastic shopping bags on the news channel this morning. I suspect that someone was saying it’s very green to charge for plastic bags, and someone else saying it isn’t fair on those who are not on a planned shopping trip.
Both are right of course.
If you are doing a big shop then taking along special bags to bring the shopping home is not only sensible, it is also the sort of thing that you are likely to remember – those cheap bags that supermarkets supply you with are really quite irritatingly cheap and nasty.
But if you are popping into a shop on the way home from work, you are not so likely to have a stock of bags available and this is when cheap plastic bags are so useful. But it is not the plastic that is the useful part – we want a bag.
And in the past there was an alternative that was greener, and just as convenient. In fact there are many shops still using this kind of bag. It is more expensive than cheap disposable plastic bags, but not ruinously so – perhaps 10-15p per bag. And of course it is recyclable.
So why not? Or at least give us a choice.