Ireland has introduced an interesting law, which has placed a 15 cent tax on the plastic bag. Combined with an advertising campaign to make the plastic bag unacceptable, use has fallen between 90-94%. Within a few weeks, there was a visual improvement in the number of plastic bags littering the environment. Other countries such as Bangladesh and China have gone further and banned the plastic bag.
Due to its relative success, many are suggesting we should implement this policy in the UK. These are some of the economic, social and environmental arguments in favour of banning the plastic bag.
Advantages of Plastic Tax
- Reduces costs to shops. Usually, shops are reluctant to charge for plastic bags. But, if they have to charge, people will be increasingly likely to use alternatives and reuse old bags.
- Reduces Litter. Around Oxford, I see a real problem with litter, 50% of which seems to be plastic bags. They get blown into hedgerows and get stuck for years, causing visual blight to the environment. If plastic bag use was discouraged the amount of litter would significantly be reduced.
- Plastic Bags not Biodegradeable. Plastic bags take 1000s of years to disintegrate, therefore our landfills are full of plastic bags which don’t breakdown
- Bad for Wildlife. Because plastic bags can float around they can often cause problems for wildlife.
- Reduce dependence on oil-based products. Because plastic bags are made from the oil they increase our dependence on oil imports. With rising prices of oil, there is an increased desire to avoid oil products where necessary.
- Aesthetically pleasing. For those who yearn for the good old days of high street shopping in paper bags, before the advent of the out of town supermarket, banning the plastic bag would encourage people to go back to the basics of shopping.
- Tax Raises Revenue. An estimated 10 million Euros
- Tax makes people pay the social cost. Using plastic bags creates negative externalities, a tax will make people pay the social cost. At the moment, plastic bags are usually free and therefore, firms subsidise the use of goods with negative externalities.
Disadvantages of Plastic Tax
- Plastic bags are useful. For example, they are very useful for picking up dog mess. Ireland has reported an increase in the amount of dog fouling since plastic bags have become more scarce. This, however, is not an insoluble problem.
- More difficult to carry shopping. Plastic bags are useful for carrying shopping, people could use reusable bags, but, there is a low take up rate at the moment.
In my view, a plastic tax is a good idea.
Related
i was wondering if you could tell me the disadantages of plastic bags please!
thanks
Nikki
Good Morning madam chairperson, 7W, Mrs Hanley and Mr Quain. Our topic for today is ‘That Plastic Bags Should Be Banned’ but our team firmly agrees that banning them is not necessarily the best option. Our team defines plastic as a substance which can be shaped when soft and then hardened, bags as containers for carrying or holding items and banned as forbidding people to see, read, use or do it.
As the negative team, we will prove to you that it is not necessary to ban plastic bags, because there are other, more important things we have to worry about. As first speaker for the negative team I will discuss that we have more serious issues to worry about than plastic bags and how plastic bags are useful and that we would find it very hard to live without them. Our second speaker will argue that plastic bags are a better alternative than canvas and brown paper bags and that plastic bags shouldn’t be banned, just restricted, our third speaker will summarize our argument for us.
We all know that there are lots of serious things happening in our world right now for example global warming, the global financial crisis, underage drinking, cancer, drugs, swine flu and heaps more, these are problems that need a lot of attention and work put towards them to make them a thing of the past. My team agrees that politicians and other important people should be spending their time finding resolutions for these problems and less time discussing plastic bags. Wouldn’t you be happier if the government gave the money it cost to ban plastic bags to scientists which then helped them find a cure for cancer? What about underage drinking? If the government put the money it cost to ban plastic bags towards stopping underage drinking it could save hundreds even thousands, of young lives each year. In other words banning plastic bags could kill people. The government could save money by not banning plastic bags and put that money back into our communities by using it to build schools, doctors surgeries, roads, community centres and many other things that would boost our community, wouldn’t’t you rather that, than see plastic bags banned?
There are a lot of things that plastic bags can be used for like when we take the dog for a walk we tie a few bags around the lead to use as a pooper scooper if we didn’t then the dog poo would be polluting our environment. For example the Irish government has banned plastic bags but has noticed an increase in the amount of dog droppings in public places, plastic bags are used as rubbish bin liners to stop you rubbish from sticking to the side of the bin, stuffing inside packages to stop the gift sliding around and thousands of other simple everyday things that we don’t notice but couldn’t do without plastic bags. Now here are some craft ideas for plastic bags including homemade toys like a scarecrow and using them to stuff plush toys. If you have no use for the plastic bags you have you can return them to the grocery store where they can be reused or put them in your recycle bin where they will be recycled. Plastic bags are a very useful item to have around the home and if they were to be banned we will find it very difficult and have lots of problems finding other alternate solutions to plastic bags.
Thank-you for listening and remember “Banning Plastic Bags Is Not Necessary”.
plastic bags should be banned i do agree with this and i want to know that why plastic bags should be banned
if people want major changes, they must lose something in return, like a cost. the banning of plastic bags saves the environment, but also causes inconvinence in people’s daly lives and jobs relating to plastic bag industry to be lost. but overall i still think it’s worth it to ban or tax the use of plastic bags, because plastic bags brings more damages than convinence. people have lived centuraries without using plastic bags, now that they are starting to see the damages of it, it’s time to go back to the good old days…
we shouldn’t ban plastic bags or tax them
i agree that we should ban plastic bags because it will increase the number of animals dying per year due to suffocating etc.
I don’t think they should be banned. How the hell are we suppose to get our groceries home? We all don’t plan our days that way. I avoid businesses that charge a TAX on bags.
Why not to go all the way and ban them. We can pick up groceries in paper bags. We should handle with care plastic and recycle it because we alone are responsible for our planet.
You’ve left out the most prominent disadvantage: shifting a significant demand over to use of paper. We would then need to assess the environmental impact of that, and ensure that paper bags use recycled content and that in the end they are recycled as well. Guaranteeing that, I think a plastic tax is a good choice.
no we shouldnt ban them we need them like alot we wouldnt have lunch baggys garbage bags and if you forget your cloth bags then you will have to buy more and that is why i think we shouldnt ban plastic bags!!!! thank you for your time
wow trever i thought u were on my side
i think we should ban plastic bags because it will reduce the amount of garbage around the world plus its not going to kill people if they do have a plastic bag to take their food home for the store
This is really a very nice post. Thank you so much for sharing.