£30 please, plus 15p for the bags.

[Workingman]

The LibDems are going to save the planet by charging 5p each for plastic bags from supermarkets and large shops. It is not the worst idea that anyone has come up with, 81% reduction in NI, 75% in Wales, but it only scratches the surface.

What about all the plastic packaging used on fresh food: four fruits on a polystyrene tray and wrapped in a plastic film, that sort of thing? More plastic bags are used to wrap loose fruit and veg. Ready meals come in layers of plastic and cardboard. Dry goods live in oversized cartons to make it look as though we are getting more for our money. Have a good look around the next time you go shopping: it's plastic, plastic everywhere............ and despite the best efforts to get us to recyle, a lot of it goes to landfill or gets dumped at the side of the road.

However, the best way to tackle the problem would be at source not the end of the line. My belief that that will not be done is a basic economic one. Plastics are a valuable by-product of the petrochemical industry; without them the world would be awash in cheap, low grade and very dirty fuel. There is a lot of money to be made producing plastics and 5p per bag will change nothing in the long run.

[TheOstrich]

I'm somewhat peeved at the proposed 5p charge - that's because, although we always use about a dozen reusable "Bags for Life" for our mainstream weekly shopping, any free plastic carrier bags which we do get from supermarkets, from time to time, we always re-use at home in our small rubbish bins, waste paper baskets etc. They never get wasted or thrown out without re-use.

[Suff]

Don't forget the energy required to recycle it too.... That's a double whammy, the energy to create it, then the whole energy required to collect it and reprocess it.

Typical unjoined up thinking. It's like WW2. The cast iron railings were not needed form all the buildings, but it was thought that people needed to feel that everyone was involved....

This sort of stuff just annoys. I saw an article on Google News today talking about threats to human survival. Global Warming was not even in the title, but it was the #1 threat in the body of the article.....

Now if they said they were going to charge you £1 per plastic bag and plough the funds into renewable energy (sans wind farms), that would be something which had a realistic chance of doing what it says on the tin. But, could you trust them.

However, again, what would they do with all that oil??? Also, as Ossie says, many of us use them instead of bought plastic bags for bins....

Historians will cover the "insanity" of the "modern" era. They won't be flattering of anyone.

[pederito1]

What about compostible bags? They have just been introduced here but I do not know what it takes to make them. I use ordinary plastic ones until they have so many holes, things drop out Then the only option is land fill.

[Workingman]

The plastic bag issue is only scratching the surface of a much bigger problem, but it now turns out that there is only a "hope" that the supermarkets will "donate" the money to unnamed charities.

Some hope! In 2011 the supermarkets handed out 8 billion plastic bags. At 5p per bag that translates to £400 million going through the tills, so unless the charge is protected in law not much of it will be donated. It will add to the already obscene profits of the supermarkets and the treasury will benefit through the tax system.

[victor]

as for oversized boxes /wrapping etc,dp what the locals do here -take it off and leave it on the checkout

[cromwell]

We'll end up being mugged for the plazzy bags!

[Osc]

We have had a plastic bag tax here since 2002 and it has been hugely successful - Irish people use cloth bags or baskets, or big plastic reusable bags. Clothes shops use paper bags which are of course recycleable. I keep a collapsible box and a couple of bags in the car for the shopping, and one or two in the kitchen for walking to the local shops, you just get into the habit of it so quickly. We pay 22c (I think, I never buy one) per bag. I'm always still taken aback when in England or elsewhere and we are given stuff in a bag without being asked if we want one!!

[Kaz]

I'm with Ossie, any plastic bags I might get - and I do try to remember to take my re-useable ones - are always reused as bin liners etc.............

I seem to remember M&S introducing a charge for bags a few years ago, and it being so unpopular they dropped it!

[JoM]

WH Smiths started charging a few years ago and dropped it too, and now they've reintroduced it, charging 1p per bag. I'm now boycotting them as I asked what would happen if I went in there on a rainy day and bought some books, I was told I'd still be charged 1p.

I think most people do re-use carriers in one way or another. I use them as bin liners in the boys' rooms. If I don't have carriers to use after 2015 then I'll just have to buy a roll of bin bags, so I'll still be using plastic bags which will go to landfill, they'll just be in a different form. This scheme may reduce the amount of carrier bags being used but the amount of bin liners used will no doubt increase.