Results tagged “environment” from Birmingham Mail - Is It Just Me

Some pious soul on the radio was banging on about plastic carrier bags over the weekend basically telling us that paying what is virtually a tax on shopping was almost a penance that would cleanse our souls for past environmental sins, redemption at the checkout.

Now on the basis that the fun loving accountants and business graduates that run our retail trade, and sadly most of what is left of our industry, would not clip their toe nails unless there was a tax benefit and a profit to be made on the clippings, I am naturally suspicious of their motives in wanting to charge for bags to save the planet, particularly as the planet is not a major shareholder.

Then when Government shows an unhealthy interest in yet another way of parting us from our money that suspicion starts to become a theory in which, as usual, we the general public, are the losers.

Now here is an idea. Anyone who has been to the USA will have noticed that supermarkets there instead of plastic carriers use large, brown paper bags - almost small sacks. They are strong and not only easy to recycle, they are also biodegradeable and produced from renewable resources. They are also free.

There seems no good reason why they are not used here as indeed the now vanished Safeway did when it was US owned in its early days. Price may be a factor but if paper bags cost the supermarkets marginally more than plastic to produce then I am sure they won't mind that as their bit on behalf of the environment they seem so eager to protect - or is it save the planet only if someone else, like us, is paying.