Leeds campaign to get rid of plastic bags
Leeds councillors are planning a city-wide campaign to stop shops and businesses handing out free plastic bags.
Each person in Britain uses an average of 300 plastic bags each year. They last up to 400 years and most end up dumped in landfill sites.
Now the city council wants to discourage their use in favour of reusable "bags for life".
A resolution expected to be approved today by the council urges the Government to bring in a new law banning free plastic bags.
It also says the council resolves to take a lead in by launching a Leeds-wide voluntary banning agreement with shops.
The council would minimise its own use and promotion of plastic bags and promote bags for life in its own outlets.
Coun Steve Smith (Lib Dem, Rothwell), executive member for environmental issues, said: "We intend to launch a campaign to raise public awareness of the problem and encourage shops and businesses to support us.
"(Plastic bags] often end up as litter and you see them in hedges and even up trees. It is important that if people do use them they dispose of them properly by putting them in their green recycling bins."
An Asda spokesman said the company did not agree with charging for bags but had introduced measures to encourage the use of bags for life.
A trial removal of plastic bags from checkouts saw a 40 per cent reduction in their use and will now be extended to all their 355 stores.
The first town to go plastic bag free was Modbury in south Devon on May 1 last year. Hot on its heels came Hebden Bridge.
The Hebden Bridge Bag Ladies launched their campaign in June last year, declaring their intention to make the town plastic bag free.
By the end of the year the Bag Ladies said 59 of the town's shops were plastic bag free, 17 had plastic bags but offered alternatives such as cotton, paper or corn bags, and 27 were still handing out traditional plastic carrier bags.
Statistically the town's only major supermarket, the Co-op, has contributed significantly to the success of the campaign.
It removed plastic carrier bags from their place beside the tills, and offered cheap starch-made bags instead, long-life heavy-duty carriers at 10p, or the country's first Fair Trade cotton shopping bags at 99p.
The Co-op does keep a few ordinary plastic carrier bags "under the counter" for people who demand them and refuse to use alternatives, but they are in a tiny minority.
In 2002 Ireland introduced a cash levy on the use of plastic bags and it was reported their usage dropped by 90 per cent.
Posted: Wednesday, July 02, 2008
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