Bishop Hill The plastic bag scam
Aug 14, 2014 Greens Some time ago it was announced that a compulsory charge would be introduced on plastic bags at retail shops, the proceeds to be distributed to good causes. At the time I suggested that the likely beneficiaries would be the same green NGOs that had campaigned for the introduction of the charge and lo and behold take a look at this:
For the first time, Tesco customers will be asked to choose the charities and environmental organisations that will benefit from an estimated £1.8 million set to be raised from carrier bag charges in Wales and Scotland.
The organisations on the shortlist for Scotland are Love Food Hate Waste, Keep Scotland Beautiful and Groundwork UK. For Wales, the shortlisted charities are Keep Wales Tidy and Groundwork UK.
Here are Keep Scotland Beautiful's pages on plastic bags. Love Food Hate Waste is a subsidiary of WRAP, the government's pet recycling (i.e. mostly pro-waste) campaign. Groundwork, however, looks clean.
Over the piece, I conclude that I am probably correct. It is a scam.
Reader Comments (58)
"Even pictures taken a few hours earlier cannot convince a disciple that he is wrong. One just can't reason with them."
Pictures of Deer, Fish, Otter and beautiful early morning scenery.
Thank you, johanna and 3x2. I've always instinctively assumed that the Pacific Gyre is bollocks. Now you have given me some facts to back that up.
3x2, you remind me of the man I heard a few years ago saying that if the Greens wanted to gain the trust of farmers they should keep a few pigs or cattle. Then they would know what the countryside was all about. Fat chance. The word "husbandry" is not in their vocabulary.
As for the evil Plastic Bag; I live in a town where the local seagulls live on a constant diet of plastic bags and the things they find in them. I have yet to see one choke to death. In fact, I'm pretty sure the "plastic bags kill wildlife" trope is a sort of deliberate mistake. The original campaign was against plastic fishing nets. As I hear it, a mistranslation of an article in a French environmentalist magazine turned that into "plastic bags". There were quite a few environmentalists who were quite angry at the time about having their campaign hijacked in this way, but hell, the damage done by the nets was mostly out in the South China Sea, and who cares about that, right?
Besides, only cloddies use plastic bags. (The snobbery of Greens knows no bounds...)
Amazon does plastic bags of various kinds from less than 2p each.
Ask them if they would like the proceeds from petrol, gas and coal as well.
Uncle Gus, seagulls aside, there is a local field where I have been physically assaulted by ponies for carrying plastic bags (from Tesco's). A human with a carrier bag who doesn't feed them is clearly denying them their legitimate rights, it would seem.
I confess I haven't performed the control experiment with Waitrose bags but I have had similar, though less violent, experiences in other locations.
Thanks, guys. I am just gobsmacked by the fact that the "plastic bags are murdering zillions of sea creatures" meme is still going, despite having zero evidence to support it.
I don't doubt that the odd albatross mistakes a placcy bag for food, and may even die as a result. As a genuine lover of wildlife, I think that it is awful. (Mind you, if they killed lots of the verminous Silver Gulls, heh, heh. But they don't, and I digress). Thing is, the albatross is seeing something that has been dumped from a ship. It has nothing whatever to do with what we take our groceries home in.
I hope that readers of this thread will take the facts up to those who perpetuate this myth.
And I repeat - how we take our shopping home is not something that the State should be involved with.
The most effective bag is a re-used woven bag made from LDPE with 40% recycled polyethylene . Table at link.
this is a good step to control the use of plastic bags. this would enhance the possibility of using eco-friendly bags.