Boy, you have to carry that weight

I’ll wade in many others about this. My one new year resolution towards a greener planet. To no longer accept plastic bags from supermarkets.

A few years ago I had a holiday in Morroco. Those of you who have done similarly may know where this is leading. I was delighted to hear that a colleague of mine had been to that same country to experience the souks, mosques, colour and exotica that comes from visiting another culture in another country and in another continent.

I asked her what was her impression was of that place. Her immediate response was not one that would grace the travelogues. It was the amount of black plastic bags that were everywhere. I had no hesitation but to agree that black plastic bags were everywhere. No, they were not everywhere, but collected in hundreds on the prickles of the prickly pear bushes that are one of the few plants to colour and decorate the basic sandy tones of the countryside. There are a lot of these bushes.

What this experience did was to highlight the problem these handy containers can create if left to blow wildly over the countryside. That that they were uniformly black certainly heightened the mess they created.

Back home I am amused and amazed by the slavish use of these bags in our shops and supermarkets. They are snapped off the hanger at the checkouts, filed with few items and placed in the trolley as the hand reaches out to grab the next bag for filling. Or offered by sales staff to carry a single item. On average we use five new bags a week. Collectively we use around eight billion bags every year. Cutting out just one in five of these would save almost 40,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent greenhouse gases a year – equivalent to taking over 12,500 cars off the road for a year.

I am not about preaching. Figures such as this are amazing and are bandied about to a whistle of astonishment perhaps but nothing much changes. As long as the shops provide us with free bags to take, the majority will continue to take them. Watch at the checkouts at the slavish indulgence of people for using these bags. It’s all too easy for us all. I have seen people place large milk containers singly in to a plastic bag and then lift the bag into the trolley. Have they not noticed the milk container has a handle that is not just for lifting milk in and out of the fridge? Steady now. It’s easy to preach. Do you want it in a bag? No, I think I can manage the newspaper in my hand.

I do have a watch dog. Allow me to introduce WRAP, the Waste & Resources Action Programme has welcomed the announcement by Tesco that the supermarket will be rewarding customers who reuse their carrier bags. I don’t think that that is enough. It’s hardly a life changing policy. Or we could go Modbury’s way. Modbury in Devon became the first town in Europe to ban plastic bags from its shops. After two weeks, an extraordinary transformation then took place in the south Devon community. Carrying a plastic bag has become antisocial behaviour. This is more like it.

Near to Perpignan in France last year, I was pleased to see no plastic bags being available at a local supermarket, one of a chain, and all the shoppers had their own bags. Being on a walking holiday, we had rucksacks. People weren’t distressed at using their own bags. Admittedly, the pace of life is less in that part of the world, as it is, I guess, in Modley, but change did happen. Or perhaps the Irish route is necessary. Ireland's 15p "plastax" on carrier bags, introduced in 2002, has led to a 90% reduction in use.

It is a small crusade I know that I am carrying out by not taking the plastic, but I look forward to the challenge of phase two. Refusing the bags of chain stores is the next one. How to avoid looking like a shop lifter leaving with goods purchased but not placed in the plastic identity bag but in my own reusable bag could give rise to some interesting encounters. Many shops are OK with this, but the ones targeted by shop lifters could and possibly rightly so be worried by losing the plastic bag.

I simply want the weight of the world lightened by cutting down on plastic. Oh yes how much food is bought wrapped and coated with the stuff? Another day.