Bargain - B&Q carrier bags only 5p each . . . .

[Mary Fisher]

Evidence?

[fred]

In article , fred writes

Wow, so many replies . . . .

I just wanted to canvass a bit of opinion and prompt a debate.

Good points made all round, I like Mary's suggestions the best and will now be washing out and re-using all the bags I currently use for picking up dog poop ;-)

As I did say, I am a bag re-user, I just resent the 'tax' and the envirospeak BS.

[Mary Fisher]

YEs, I think, on the whole, that you've not persuaded the group.

[Mary Fisher]

Just thought about it - it would be cheaper for you to kill the dog.

I'll do it for you if you haven't what it takes.

Mary

[EricP]

Address please? They have a new customer. :))

(Mail works if you fear the spam freaks)

[mmurph30]

i live in Ireland & its amazing how quickly it catchs on. Most people rarely pay the tax now (15C). You just get into the habit of always having bags in the car. B & Q don't do paper bags here. I work in a gift shop & we provide paper bags free of charge at a huge cost to the company. A plastc carrier bag is lest than 1c , but a paper one is about 20c. The big supermarkets , Tesco etc, don't have paper bags. They would save millions if they didn't have to give away plastic bags. I believe they are pushing for it in Britain, but can't be seen to be too eager to their customers.

[:::Jerry::::]

Bollox ! Paper degrades.

[usenet]

It's not just the matter of degrading or not, it's the energy and materials used to make the bag(s).

If a paper bag uses more energy and raw materials to make it than a plastic bag then it's going to do more damage to the environment than a plastic bag even if it degrades into compost or whatever.

If plastic bags are re-used (several times preferably) I wouldn't be a bit surprised if they cause less damage to the environment than paper ones.

[Mary Fisher]

er - I didn't say that they were preferable to plastic, just that HB had been using them for years ...

If they are put into landfill they degrade more swiftly than plastic bags and, it has been opined, that their degradation is carbon neutral. That's not true of plastic even in thousands of years.

As you suggested, it depends on the Ifs :-)

If paper bags are composted it's largely done by life forms, they don't cost energy. The resulting composted material contributes - in our case - to our food. If we grow our own vegetables (and eggs) we are saving energy in terms of food miles, shoe leather, carrier bags of any kind ...

It's certainly not a simple problem.

Mary

[:::Jerry::::]

You still end up using energy to recycle, something that does not happen if the item is allowed to degrade due to natures natural process. Paper is, in it's raw material state, in plentiful and manageable supply, not to mention that the paper that is used for paper bags and the like will have almost certainly been made out of recycled paper, so that side of the equation has already taken place.

The reason shops don't use paper carrier bags is because the customers have little faith, I suspect, due to the standard of paper carrier bags 20 or so years ago, or because they don't know any different.

[fred]

In article , mmurph30 writes

good argument. I had thought that the main environmental argument was one of energy, in terms of manufacture and raw material (oil) which I felt was dwarfed by waste from pre-packaged goods. The argument that the bags are an environmental problem as litter was not one I had considered fully, even though they blow past me on a daily basis.

So, nice idea, but I think it will make bog all difference until it is legislated for.

[raden]

In message , Rick Dipper writes

I have also adopted the idea of unpacking the goods and leaving the unwanted packaging for them to dispose of at the till

... can be a bit of a bugger when returning defective goods, but if they're going to make a token gesture of 5p a bag, then they could go the extra 1500 metres and cut down on all that extra unnecessary crap that the goods come packed in

[raden]

Ammonia in a paper bag? ... interesting

you need a real polythene bag for that

[chris French]

In message , Mary Fisher writes

I think Mich needs to wonder why he comes across as a such a suspicious character.

I nearly always go shopping with a bag of some sort, usually a small backpack or a couple of cycle panniers, never once have I ever had an issue with this.

My favourite plastic bag tale was about 10 years ago in a large M&S in London. I bought a small item, a pack of socks or somesuch, when I paid the checkout person wanted to put it a small plastic bag, I said I didn't need a bag (I didn't have bag, but it would go in my pocket).

CP: 'I have too'

Me: I don't need one'

etc.

CP ' You need a bag to show you bought it here'

ME ' So if I put something a bag it means I've bought it...That's what the receipt is for.....'

In the end she insisted in putting it in the bag, I let her, then took it out and gave her the bag back - she looked so pissed off.......

[raden]

In message , ":::Jerry::::" writes

But not very well in landfill sites, buried in the absence of oxygen.

There was quite a detailed article in New Scientist a few years ago comparing degradation of plastics and paper.

Also, the energy required / environmental impact to produce a paper bag was comparable to that of a plastic one when the whole process was looked at

[Mary Fisher]

That reminds me of folk who, when visiting London, bought the cheapest thing they could find at Harrods just to get the posh bag. Then they'd use that bag for as long as it lasted. I could never understand it.

Mary

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Hmm. Surely paper is as near a natural material as exists, and if used on landfill has no more effect than leaves, etc?

[usenet]

But the 'energy' cost of any sort of bag has very little to do with how it's disposed of. OK, so you're getting a little more back from paper bags than you would from plastic ones but I reckon it's pretty marginal. If the bag takes more energy to *produce* than a plastic one and/or we use more paper bags than we would have used plastic ones there's still a net loss.

However I'm not at all sure of the relative energy costs of producing paper and plastic bags. My gut feeling is that paper uses a fair amount of energy (evaporating water and such) and paper bags might well be more energy costly to produce. However plastic bags probably use more unreplaceable resources (oil in particular).

[Mary Fisher]

Indeed. and that's important to me.

[MBQ]

How did they know?

MBQ