Plastic bag tax creates MORE rubbish as supermarkets hand out a billion ‘bags for life’ each year
Britain's ten biggest retailers handed out 1.18 billion bags for life last year
THE plastic bag tax is creating more rubbish as more than a billion plastic "bags for life" are being handed out every year.
Almost double the amount of plastic is used to make the longer lasting bags - undermining the goal of cutting back on waste as 1.18billion bags were issued last year.
The bags for life are supposed to be used multiple times, but the figures suggest people are using them as single-use carriers.
The average household used 44 new bags for life last year.
According to charity Environmental Investigation Agency:
- Tesco issued 430 million bags for life in the 12 months to the end of June
- Sainsbury’s 268 million
- Morrisons 140 million
- Aldi 52 million
- Co-op 28 million
- Waitrose 22 million
- M&S 14 million
- Iceland 3.5 million
Minister calls for schools to give up plastic
By LYNN DAVIDSON, Whitehall Correspondent
EDUCATION Secretary Damian Hinds has pleaded for all schools to become plastic-free by 2022 by ditching items such as straws for milk cartons and packaging that can't be recycled.
Mr Hinds highlighted the example of Georgeham Primary School in Devon - the first school in the UK to go "single use" plastic free.
Pupils there have milk served out of washable beakers and it is delivered in recyclable containers.
In the school canteen, clingfilm has been ditched in favour of tin foil.
Mr Hinds called on school leaders to stop using plastic items binned after one use like straws, bottles and food packaging in favour of sustainable alternatives.
He said: "On my first school visit as Education Secretary almost a year ago, the very first question I was asked by a pupil was what we can do to limit the damage of plastic on the environment.
"Reducing our use of plastic clearly is an important and timely issue which has captured the interest and the imagination of everyone in society.
“Plastic can harm our precious environment and be lethal to wildlife. The leadership shown by schools like Georgeham Primary in going single use plastic free is an impressive example for us all – and I want work to support every school in the country following their lead by 2022.
“It’s not always easy but we all have a role to play in driving out avoidable plastic waste, and with more schools joining others and leading by example, we can help to leave our planet in a better state than we found it.”
Richard Walker, Iceland’s joint managing director, admitted to The Times that the change had increased the amount of plastic used.
He explained: "I’m not proud of this because beyond the headline of the fact I have just removed a quarter of a billion single-use carrier bags from circulation, these bags for life are a thicker, higher grade of plastic.
"We are selling less of them but it’s not yet less enough that it’s compensated in terms of the extra weight that they are for the fewer amount of bags that we are selling.
"So therefore I haven’t yet reduced the total amount of plastic weight, even though I have eliminated 5p carrier bags."
The Sun Says
REMEMBER when the Tories stood for low taxes rather than being obsessed with dreaming up new ones?
Environment chief Michael Gove wants to double the 5p plastic bag charge and roll it out to thousands of small shops currently exempt.
As The Sun has previously argued, there is little practical justification for hiking the charge — but it is yet another little nibble at the pockets of hard-pressed shoppers when we should be encouraging them on to the high streets.
Whatever happened to the Government’s vow to help the “just about managings”?
Sales of 5p bags by Britain’s ten biggest retailers fell by about a fifth last year to 1.2 billion.
Sarah Baulch, the Environmental Investigation Agency’s senior ocean campaigner, said that supermarkets were undermining the success of the 5p charge for single-use bags by selling bags for life too cheaply.
And she pushed for the bags to be sold for £1, saying the term "bags for life" could be misleading.
She added: "A significant increase to the price of bags or ending sales of single-use bags completely should be a next step in reducing plastic-bag usage.
"In the face of a global plastic pollution crisis, supermarkets must go beyond these minimal measures and fundamentally rethink their use of single-use plastics across their supply chains."
Michael Gove, the environment secretary, is proposing to increase the compulsory charge for thin bags from 5p to 10p and extend it to thousands of small shops, which are allowed at present to give away plastic bags.
However, he is not planning any action on bags for life.
We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at tips@the-sun.co.uk or call 0207 782 4368. You can WhatsApp us on 07810 791 502. We pay for videos too. Click here to upload yours.