Soap Box Blog: A balanced bag debate

In June of this year, Wales’ environment minister Jane Davidson announced a series of proposals which could see shops charge as much as 15p for a plastic bag. If agreed, Wales would lead the UK on dealing with cutting plastic bag use.

This follows previous calls by Gordon Brown for the nation to cut sharply the 13bn plastic bags, or more starkly, the 10 plastic bags per week per household, used each year.  The Daily Mail responded to Brown’s calls by offering a free reusable bag to every reader and wallcharts to record your plastic bag consumption.

The support by famous names and celebrities, such as Dr Adam Hart-Davis, Bill Bryson and Michael Parkinson, demonstrates the campaign’s breadth of appeal.

At first glance, this might not look good for the bag industry, but in many ways it represents an opportunity. It creates increased awareness of the need for alternative products, while giving us the platform to demonstrate how this can best be achieved.

Indeed, it has also undoubtedly been helped by the current economic state of flux. In a recession the promotional incentive rewards that appeal most to customers are those things that people may have usually bought themselves, but have had to cut back on.

Branded environmentally friendly bags are an effective means of rewarding customers in this way. With the environment high on the agenda for a growing percentage of shoppers, good quality, attractive and durable bags offer something practical and rewarding, but at the same time provide increased brand visibility and reinforcement – a win-win situation.

However, it’s not necessarily as simple as this. There is a huge amount of misrepresentation of facts in reporting on plastic bags.

Take Wales as the example. The Welsh Assembly has released figures stating that plastic bags account for 2.7% of litter by weight (Keep Wales Tidy survey figures) and 2.1% of all litter found on beaches. Annually the cost of removing this litter is about £1m, with all litter removal costs in Wales totaling £37m a year. This puts the plastic bag into much clearer focus and context. The reality is that it accounts for a much smaller percentage than we are led to believe. 

Reporting is also not discussing what happens to the bi-product of oil used to make plastic bags, if they are abolished altogether. That is perhaps, an even bigger issue.

The role of our industry is set to grow as the campaign develops and the shift in emphasis away from plastic bags gathers pace. Yes, with this growth comes greater opportunity, but also greater opportunity for mismanagement and abuse. 

As an industry, we need to be careful where the bags are sourced and how they are manufactured. We need to play our part in educating customers on what products are right for them and demonstrate the full range of options available.

For example, the paper bag, made from 100% recycled and/or biodegradable materials, offers retailers and others a great product that is totally sustainable unlike the plastic bag. 

The concerns are that such publicly fought campaigns forget to show the bigger picture. This in many ways poses a cause for concern for our industry. If we don’t play our role in educating our customers, maybe we could quickly find ourselves in a situation whereby we have constrained or limited the type of bag that we can sell. After all, we need to capitalise on the market, not reduce it.

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