The packaging sector have made this call following the release of the Environment Agency’s research on supermarket carrier bags, which found that a cotton shopping bag has to be re-used at least 131 times to have less environmental impact than a standard single-use plastic bag.
Packaging and Films Association chief executive Barry Turner, and Carrier Bag Consortium chairman Paul Marmot , have written a joint open letter to Jane Davidson explaining to her that she gave them an undertaking to review the plastic bag tax if the Environment Agency research proved that for most households lightweight bags had the lightest environmental impact compared with heavier bags.
The Environment Minister wants to reduce the use of plastic carrier bags and if the Welsh Assembly pushes ahead with plans for a bag tax, shops could charge as much as 15p for a bag.
Turner said: “We are now calling on Jane Davidson to honour her word and abandon the bag tax in Wales. This would be a brave move but it would show that the Welsh Assembly, like the Scottish Parliament before it, respects science over spin.”
Marmot added: “This is what we have been telling the Welsh Environment Minister for years and yet she has forced this tax on the people of Wales. If it goes ahead, Wales will suffer higher environmental damage not less. These are the unintended consequences which her counterparts in Westminster and Scotland acknowledged a long time ago.”
The CBC has also pointed to the fact that a voluntary code in the UK has removed the need for the punitive tax at a time when Welsh households are under tough economic pressure.
Turner said: “By encouraging consumers to reuse carrier bags, consumption has dropped by around 50% in Wales – up to 70% in some cases. People are now encouraged to recycle unwanted bags at front of store with around 5,000 collection points now available across the UK and retailers have revised their bag specifications to ensure minimal resources are used.
“There has also been an increase of 40% in the amount of recycled plastic being used in bags. All this has been achieved without Government intervention and all within the waste framework directive – according to the principles of reduce, reuse and recycle.”
The letter to Davidson said: “Not to review evidence of this significant nature risks the Assembly damaging the environment by advocating bags that, in reality, will be more harmful to the environment than the ones used at present.”
It concluded: “Finally, we remain concerned that your officials continue to use exaggerated language in referring to the littering of plastic carriers as littering will occur regardless of the material used. The challenge is to educate people to stop littering altogether.”
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