Plastic Bag Usage Falls by 4 Billion

Supermarket single use carrier bag useage has dropped approximately 40% since 2006 to 6.1billion according to the British Retail Consortium. In 2006, an estimated 10.7billion bags were handed out by the major surpermarkets.

Although the signs are that people are permanently switching to reusable bags, they still pose a significant environmental problem.

Plastic bags take 1,000 years to decompose on landfill sites and have an everage life span of 20minutes. Not a very good payoff. Landfills also produce a lot of methane, which is highly contributory to global climate change.

Wasting materials such as plastic bags causes massive amounts of energy to be used to extract and manufacture natural resource replacement materials. Reducing material use through waste prevention and increasing material efficiency through product redesign have the greatest beneficial impact on climate change. Recycling adds further to greenhouse gas savings by reducing the need for energy-intensive resource extraction.

DEFRA is currently reviewing the UK's waste situation. One policy being considered to further reduce plastic bag use is to charge 7p per bag from next spring. Profits would go to charity, including those involved with the environment.

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Plastic Bag Usage Falls by 4 Billion

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