From The Daily Mail:
The number of plastic bags blighting Britain's beaches has rocketed by a fifth in a year – despite vows by the Coalition to tackle the issue. Some 72 throwaway carrier bags are now littering every mile of coastline, posing a devastating threat to marine and bird life such as turtles and gulls.
Cue predictable calls for a plastic bag tax etc.
Maths #1, the easy bit: 1,760 yards divided by 72 = one bag every 24 yards. Not exactly nice, but it's not going to ruin your day out.
Maths #2, the tricky bit:
The article doesn't say how many plastic bags this relates to in total, but (depending on how you measure it - the shorter the ruler you use, the longer the coastline) the UK's coastline appears to be about 6,000 miles long.
So that means about half a million plastic bags (6,000 x 72). We don't know how long a plastic bag survives on a beach before it gets shredded to nothing, is buried, rots away or is washed or blown away. Five years, tops? That means about 100,000 plastic bags are discarded on beaches each year.
According to this, UK supermarkets hand out 8,000 million plastic bags every year.
In other words, for every 80,000 plastic bags handed out by UK supermarkets each years, a single one ends up being discarded on a beach. So you'd have to make a massive, massive reduction in the number of plastic bags handed out and/or have a massive, massive tax on them before it had the slightest impact. While people might be public spirited enough to take some plastic bags with them to the supermarket (I usually do), any tax on plastic bags would have to be enormous to discourage people from abandoning them on beaches. If it starts pissing it down and you have to scramble to get all your stuff together, chasing after a spare plastic bag is the least of your priorities.
What's wrong with local councils just having more dustbins on their beaches, or just tidying the bloddy beaches up a couple of times a year?
DISCLAIMER: I am a public spirited sort of citizen. If at all possible, I will take our plastic bags and crap with us, and as I walk back up the beach on the way home, I will grab the odd wrapper or discarded can or coffee cup and stick it in the rubbish bag, which I put it into the first rubbish bin I find on the promenade. I'm not encouraging litter or anything, but let's accept it is not really a huge problem.
Tuesday, 28 May 2013
Fun With Numbers - The plastic bags littering our coastline
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7 comments:
Here in the Gweriniaeth Cymru Sosialaidd we already have a plastic bag tax and it's not much, 2p a bag, but retailers have to charge a minimum of 5p a bag and they get to keep the extra 3p. I now see most people using re-useable bags in the supermarket. It doesn't need to be a massive, massive tax; the psychological difference between "free" and "costing you something" is enough, however little that something is. Most people are happy to pay 10p for a much sturdier bag, as they think they will now be saving money as they will be using said bag more than twice, plus it's bigger than the 5p bags. It is a feature of human psychology that you value little what costs you nothing, therefore you are far more likely to abandon a plastic bag on the beach if it was originally free and moreover you have hundreds of the bloody things in the cupboard at home, more than you know what to do with, than if it cost you something, even as little as 10p.
On another note, my experience of the free bags was that they biodegrade in about six months, which is a right pain if you have stored something in them in your garden shed.
B, yes, I agree.
A clean plastic bag which you have only used for shopping a couple of times is "worth" 5p to you (because you paid 5p for it), so it will encourage people to re-use them. Hooray.
But what is the value to you of a plastic bag with sand in it, which might be a bit ripped, have food rests in it, have been used for sitting on, storing swimming trunks which are wet with sea water etc?
I'd guess pretty much nothing. Especially if it is blowing away from you at several miles an hour.
It depends if you have anything else to carry home said wet swimming things, remains of picnic etc in, I suppose. The 10p bags are larger, so less likely to be dispensable for the homeward journey as you would have fewer of them, not to mention the tendency to bring more plastic bags than you actually need when they are free.
B, if you are doing a day trip to the seaside, it's £x for petrol, £y for parking, £z for ice creams and funfair rides.
5p for a plastic bag just does not matter.
This also raises the question of whether all the bags on beaches are those discarded by day trippers or merely plastic bags which have blow half way across the country and have not yet blown into the sea?
What I find most peculiar, and it probably says as much about me as the stire in question, is M & S and their "plastic bag" policy.
If you purchase anything outside of the Food Hall the staff happily stuff your purchase into a well made, reasonably good quality plastic bag with handles, in varying sizes and carry capabilities. No (obvious, up front) charge for the bag.
But in the Food Hall 5p for a flimsy bag which tears at the slightest provocation and with the sort of handles become a genuine pain if the bag is full, or close to.
You have the great garbage patches of the sea as well. Some plastic bags is neither here or there. The problem is beaches filled to the brim with bits of plastic. It usually stems from ships and countries with a less than ideal garbage handling.
"5p for a plastic bag just does not matter."
It's not the price, it the choice of carrying all your wet swimming stuff and remains of picnic in your arms or in the bag that's just now blowing down the beach that matters.
But yes, I reckon the "plastic bag on beach" count is probably largely due to "blow-in"s.
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