Do you have a plastic bag tax?

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A few years ago England produced a plastic bag tax. It had been trialled in Scotland, Wales and N.Ireland and proved a big success, an 83% reduction of plastic bags handed out at the checkout in England in 2015, some 9 billion less in circulation today. People understood it was good for the environment and so they stopped taking the bags, young people quite happy to just carry the goods or buy a bag (about 10 cents) and the oldies bringing their own bags for the big shops. Some idiots refused to buy bags and would steal a shopping trolley on principal, if somehow this ten cents charge was a crime. In Wales supermarkets noted an 80% increases in stolen shopping carts after the tax was introduced. Marks & Spencers and the more upmarket shops saw a much smaller decline in non bag use as the snobby shoppers wanted to let you knew they had shopped there. The supermarkets were not too keen on the idea and reticent at first but it was made law and so they went along with it. Essentially the big supermarket brand bags are designed to advertise the store, encourage people to buy things and make it convenient to get them home. For some reason the stores worried people would buy less if they had to spend ten cents on a bag? They also didn’t want rivals bags with their home brands in everywhere. Another aspect was the money raised from the tax would all be spent on charities, with the supermarkets distributing the money. 99% of the big supermarkets behaved and gave the money to charity. But Tesco, our biggest chain (your Wal-Mart type of set up and size) decided they would quite like some of that cash from the tax and charged a $6.5 million dollar annual ‘admin fee’. Last year they sold 675 million bags and raised £31 million pounds for charity. They were the only ones in the big store chains to charge a huge admin fee, especially as they have charity departments set up years ago at head office to deal with it and so why the extra cost? It’s just too tempting for them not to slice money off the top of what is a brilliant worthwhile and effective tax. Due to the tax working so well the government are thinking about more plastic taxes as the world’s oceans begin to fill up with non biodegradable plastics and destroying the eco system. Who knew our bodies are full of the digested plastic particles fish and animals eat? That can’t be healthy. Most plastic packaging is needed to keep products fresh and in place in the packet but some is about branding and product placing, and it’s that we need to cut back on. People really do buy things because of plastic and product presentation though, regardless of the quality of the product. You will be surprised how many people will only buy a coconut if it’s wrapped in cellophane. I tried this experiment when I worked at a supermarket and it was five to one in favour of the wrapped county to the unwrapped one next to it. Our habits need to change.