On 04/06/2014 13:20, Michael Chare wrote:
The government wants to introduce a charge for plastic bags. I have
never seen the point of this, it is not as if I see lots of empty bags
lying about or on beaches.

No, they're all dumped in the flippin' canal, wrapping themselves round
my propeller, leading to an "entertaining" few minutes up to my elbow in
freezing cold water disentangling them. Another popular end use is for
wrapping up dog sh1t and hanging it on the hedges where people walk
their dogs and children. :-/

The bags we collect get used at least twice. Once to take goods from
the supermarket and once as pedal bin liners.

Good, as long as the bags are disposed of sensibly at the end of life.
They can and do kill many animals both on land and in the water when
they end up "in the wild".

Where I live the council gives me plastic bags to put my rubbish in. I
use two per week, one clear bag for paper etc, and one black bag for
general rubbish. I am sure that the amount of plastic in these bags far
exceeds that in the supermarket bags.

The difference being that the council bags are all, in theory, collected
by the council and disposed of safely or recycled as new ones.

Do we really need this legislation?

Yes. Although it would be better if the proceeds were collected as a tax
and ring fenced for environmental improvement.

Incidentally, paper bags buried a century ago are still intact, as are
newspapers, in many dumps, and the new, improved, plastic bags that
"biodegrade" in a few months all degrade into tiny plastic spheres which
get ingested by plankton and so by other animals that eat the plankton.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.