Wednesday 21 November 2007

Plastic bags

At today's Environment Panel meeting I made a request that a retail area such as Ashton could be designated a plastic bag free zone. I have done some research on this matter and found the following facts:

1. On average we use each plastic bag for 12 minutes

2. Each one of us uses 290 plastic bags a year

3 This means that there are 13 billion bags in circulation every year

4. Bags comprise take up 11% of landfill

I also think that they are a major contributor to our litter problem.

So with all this in mind I asked Martin Kimber environment boss to work with me and retail outlets in Ashton to see if they are willing to reduce the number of plastic bags they distribute every year and possibly to find alternatives.

What do you think? Do you like the plastic bag or do you think we use too many and need to reduce their use?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I agree with you. Plastic bags just become a habit- a reflex action you follow at the checkout. I became amazed at the number of plastic bags we were accumulating at home. Now I take a largish shopping bag and do not use the plastic.I should mention that I am not a car driver in case people think it an easy option for me to just load the boot!