From today: the new 5p tax will be charged for single-use plastic shopping bags

The long-debated tax of 5 pence per single-use plastic bag becomes law from the 5th October in England, and applies to 'free' bags from larger shops and chains (enterprises employing more than 250 people). Smaller shops can also charge if they wish. The sums charged go into pots for charity...so there are some complex processes, rules, exceptions (and fines for non-compliance) behind the scenes. 
Read the government's guidance for retailers here.

So what? 
In 2013 we used 8 billion of these 'free' bags per year, just from UK supermarkets....with year-on-year totals growing.
Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland have already implemented this tax - the latest figures show that in Wales, the use of these short-life bags nationally has been reduced by 79% over 4 years.

The majority of these bags are instant waste, with an enormous cumulative impact in terms of costs of dealing with household and business rubbish, and blight from windswept litter all around us. 
Read TTT's earlier 2010 post about global plastic pollution here. 
They are derived from oil, a non-renewable resource. (There are other options such as bidoegradeable cornstarch).

Of course there is a carbon saving if bag use is reduced - savings in terms of materials used to make them, and their distribution, and the carbon costs of disposing of them. 
'Reduce' has much more positive impact than 're-use' or 'recycle' and is much more within our own control.

What does this mean for me?
There's a new article - click here - which summarises exactly that.

There's an easy option that can suit all pockets: 
use a textile 'bag for life'. 
Made of jute or cotton, they are recyclable when they finally pack up - cut up and composted, or used as mulch.

For a good short article about re-usable bags, click here.

Cloth bags also have a carbon cost in their own production and distribution; some long-life shopping bags are made of plastic textiles.

Reducing Waste for Foodival

In today's news we learn that 90% of seabirds have eaten plastic and are likely to retain some in their gut. It's pretty horrendous that so much waste plastic ends up polluting our oceans and we will be highlighting waste at this year's Tooting Foodival. 


It is easy to forget that plastic comes largely from fossil fuels, that diminishing supply of 300m year old organic matter [see US Dept of Energy] that currently powers the global economy. 


An event we ran nearly five years ago, Plastic from Oil Well to Ocean via Tooting, looked in more detail at this topic and, perhaps surprisingly, is by far the most read post in the history of this blog!  Some of our readers evidently think this topic is important. 

As usual, as part of Foodival, we will aim to give the south west London public a taste of locally grown, locally cooked, low food mile, tasty food.  But we really want to minimise the waste we create as much as possible and especially waste from plastic that is so harmful to our environment, the natural world and ultimately us.  So, can you help us?

This year we are asking all festival attendees to BRING YOUR OWN plate and cutlery to the Foodival.  That way we will have less waste, fewer CO2 emissions and a lighter environmental footprint.  Yes it might be a bit of a hassle and something we are not used to doing, but also is this small change that hard to accomplish?  We hope that as many of you as possible will try to join in with this initiative.  We will have biodegradable plates & cutlery on hand as a back up, but there is still an environmental impact inherent in any product manufacturing, so we will be charging for these! 

So the message is please BRING YOUR OWN or suffer the £1 a plate!