Liz Gyekye / packagingnews.co.uk
CBC calls on Welsh government to abandon
bag charge
Wales will start charging 5p for carrier bags as of from 1 October. Money from the charge will be passed on to environmental charities and will not go to government.
The EA’s report on carrier bags, published in February, found that cotton bags were no greener than plastic bags.
CBC chairman Paul Marmot said: “The Welsh tax flies in the face of science. Now is the time for Wales to catch up with scientific consensus instead of blindly following the greenwash. The fact is that the carbon impact of a carrier bag is so small as to barely register when measured against the overall impact of households.
“The average daily car usage of 30 miles – less than a single trip from Cardiff to Swansea – has an equivalent CO2 impact to the number of carrier bags used by someone from Wales every seven years.”
Speaking about the bag charge, Environment and Sustainable Development Minister John Griffiths said: “I am proud that we in Wales are taking the lead in the UK in introducing a charge. This will ensure that people are thinking, and talking, about the problem of single use carrier bags. They are a waste of resources, a problem as litter and a symbol of the throwaway society.”
Litter
The CBC said that the government had greatly exaggerated claims relating to the contribution of bags to litter.
“We appeal to the minister to make a commitment to a full and open review of this policy as soon after implementation as possible and before too much damage is done in misleading consumers about the real credentials of lightweight plastic bags. It is time to start focusing on the really important environmental and sustainability issues that are worthy of the attention of Ministers and world leaders,” said Marmot.
He concluded: “This is an unnecessary tax on the Welsh people. It is not the time to penalise consumers when they can least afford it. Government research shows that 76% of households put their free issue carrier bags to secondary uses such as bin liners and, once deprived of this valuable resource, will end up paying for heavier duty bin liners with no net environmental gain.
“If the minister was serious about the environment he would be reviewing the facts and working within the principles of the waste review rather than blindly pursuing a political policy introduced by his predecessor.”
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