[svenrufus]

Sure, Charge for them, why not.

But I do get a bit tetchy about all the attention paid to plastic carrier bags. As irritating as it can be to try and figure out what to do with all the plastic bags we are given, it is not the biggest environmental issue around shopping. I really worry that all the focus on plastic bags allows people to take their eye off the real issues. The warm glow we get from saying no to a plastic bag allows us to avoid having to make more significant changes such as not buying so much useless junk in the first place!

First off, the big thing to think about is your shopping habits. Where does your food come from, how much other packaging, how were the people of the environment around where it was produced treated... and so on.

I just looked up some stats about the amount of waste in the UK. About 80000 tonnes of plastic bags disposed of - a significant amount for sure, but it pales into insignificance against the 29.6 milion tonnes of domestic waste produced in other ways. Where's the pressure to tackle that? Why not a poll with the heading 'Should we pay a deposit on glass bottles?' - significantly more weight in glass, never mind the embedded energy used in making it. Countless other similar examples to choose from. .....

Did you really need that widget you bought last week, which will have broken by next week anyway? Do you have a disposable pen? Do you stop for coffee in places where they serve it in cardboard cups rather than somewhere that gives you a china cup? Why have you got 56" plasma telly (and is it on standby?) .....

Don't accept plastic bags, as they are wasteful and unnecessary, but don't duck the bigger issues either.