Nick Clegg’s recent announcement of a five pence charge for single use carrier bags in England from Autumn 2015 was definitely welcome, even if a cynic might describe it as jumping before being pushed. Until recently, England seemed to be dragging its feet compared with Wales, which introduced a charge in 2011, closely followed by Northern Ireland, and with Scotland planning to introduce a charge in 2014. The indications are that the charges have been extremely effective in reducing the use of plastic carrier bags, but I’m concerned that the scheme announced by Clegg is being set up to fail.
The need for action on plastic bags was emphasised earlier this year when the European Commission published three studies looking into the composition and sources of marine litter in European seas. In a chapter integrating the results it noted that:
“Plastics are the most abundant debris found in the marine environment and comprise more than half of marine litter in European Regional Seas. More than half of the plastic fraction is composed of plastic packaging waste with plastic bottles and bags being predominant types of plastic packaging…
Therefore, measures within a strategy to close the largest loopholes in the plastic packaging cycle should target plastic bottles and plastic bags.”
Clegg’s announcement at the Liberal Democrat conference certainly targets plastic bags. However, two important exemptions the government is proposing seem set to undermine the scheme’s impact.
Cutting corner shops
The first, a proposed exemption from the charge for businesses with fewer than 250 employees, is arguably the less important. Whether this is based on a genuine assessment of the likely impacts on small retailers, or simply a concession to bring “growth at all costs” elements of the coalition on board, is not clear. However, a number of possible consequences can be foreseen.
At the margin, the lure of free carrier bags may encourage some shoppers to favour small retailers – good news for corner shops and the like. However, there may also be a tendency for people to ‘stock up’ on carrier bags during these visits. While single use carrier bags may be free at the point of sale, they do have to be paid for by the retailer. The extent to which small retailers benefit from the exemption (relative to the current situation) would therefore be determined by the balance between any increase in sales and the cost of providing any additional bags.
Alternatively, it might be that exempt shops decide to implement a charge themselves. From autumn 2015, paying for bags will be seen as the norm in England, so their customers might not blink at being charged 5p. However, voluntary charging is unlikely to be universal, and where no charge is levied, no change in behaviour is likely. The exemption for small businesses can therefore be expected to mean that the reduction in bag usage will not be as significant as that seen in Wales.
Including small retailers in the charge would seem to have quite a lot in its favour, especially for the small businesses themselves. Given that the charge is not a tax, and will not go to government, they will have a choice as to what to do with the revenue. Larger retailers are being pressed to hand the proceeds over to charity, but there is nothing to stop small retailers pocketing the cash. I doubt that the administrative costs of charging a customer 5p for a bag, at a point when they are already making a payment, are anywhere near this level.
Applying the charge universally would also seem fairer. One of my favourite comments from a retailer about the difference between ‘voluntary approaches’ – much favoured by the current government – and regulation, is that at least regulation is ‘equally unfair to all’. If small businesses were required to participate, it seems inconceivable that they would be out of pocket, and everyone would benefit from the expected reduction in litter.
The small business exemption seems likely to result in the worst of both worlds – some corner shops feeling compelled to supply free carrier bags for fear that their customers will go elsewhere (leaving them worse off than under a compulsory charge), and a smaller reduction in plastic bag litter than might otherwise have been achieved.
Policy breakdown
The second proposed exemption may be more significant. Defra’s press release states that:
“The government will also incentivise biodegradable bags. A new high standard for these products will be developed with manufacturers. Bags which meet that standard will be exempt from the charge.”
While the details of this standard are yet to be determined, there is a touch of irony here. The UK recently challenged an Italian law banning the sale of non-biodegradable plastic bags, claiming a breach of internal market rules. While a ban is obviously very different from a charge, it would be interesting to understand from Defra the basis upon which it is felt that such an exemption could be justified. Notwithstanding the fact that biodegradable bags tend to be more expensive for retailers, encouraging their use would certainly seem to inhibit the reduction in terrestrial and marine litter that is sought.
Whether a plastic bag is biodegradable or not makes no difference in terms of its contribution to the disamenity impact of litter. A biodegradable bag looks no less ugly when it is blowing around your local neighbourhood or half buried in the sand on your favourite beach. It is also just as problematic when ingested by marine fauna. While under controlled composting conditions some types of biodegradable plastics may break down fully within a matter of weeks, degradation is much slower in seawater.
The French research institute IFREMER has found that in the Bay of Biscay most of the waste items found on the seabed were plastic (92%) and of those 94% were plastic bags. This would suggest that plastic bags do not remain at the surface, or in the water column, where they might be expected to pose the greatest risk to marine fauna – including turtles, which confuse them for jellyfish – but instead sink to the bottom over time. If biodegradable bags broke down before reaching the bottom, there might be a small reduction in risk to some forms of marine wildlife. However, there does not seem to be any evidence that this is what occurs.
Mr Clegg’s announcement is an encouraging sign that England is finally catching up with the devolved administrations. The straightforward policy of a universal charge for all types of carrier bags has been shown to be popular, harmless to business and effective in cutting the number of plastic bags entering circulation – although it will take several years before the wider environmental impacts can be properly assessed. It is therefore a little mysterious that the proposals for England should include these two devilish details, which leave UK-wide carrier bag policy dangerously close to snatching defeat from the jaws of a turtle victory.
Small retailers again ask government to be included within the charge
http://resource.co/article/newsagents-want-carrier-bag-levy-small-shops-10547
While the Welsh charge is exemplary in its comprehensiveness, and resulting clarity for consumers, the Westminster government is getting tied up in knots over its proposed exemptions. Unsurprisingly, it appears that no small businesses actually requested an exemption. What seems unclear, however, is whether anyone actually asked for an exemption for biodegradables?
http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2326693/minister-gets-carbon-savings-of-plastic-bags-massively-wrong
The British Retail Consortium don’t agree with Nick either. In a recent report they say
“We believe that any charge in England should be clear, straightforward and consistent with the approaches taken in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. The proposed charging regime will leave retailers with complex messages to communicate to shoppers as to why some shops and some non-reusable bags are exempt from the charge.”
http://www.letsrecycle.com/news/latest-news/compost/retail-sector-to-publish-food-waste-figures
Small shops don’t want the exemption either. The Association of Convenience Stores (ACS) has written to the Environmental Audit Committee, calling for local shops to be included in the scheme.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25399779
Speaking as a consumer, I regularly buy supermarket ‘canvas’ bags then forget to keep them in the car for future use and use free plastic bags on my next trip. Hit me where it hurts! Don’t mess about with a 5p charge; it should be 50p per bag with proceeds to charity. On a large shop that really would make me think – and remind me to keep my canvas bags in the car!
Perhaps Owen Paterson isn’t a reader of Isonomia.
Alongside pointing out the positive aspects of climate change to the party faithful http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2297463/there-are-advantages-to-global-warming-says-environment-minister
he has reiterated that bags meeting a biodegradable standard could be given out for free
http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2297602/greg-barker-calls-for-decentralised-energy-revolution
The big question is what does the government mean when the say “biodegradable”? Is the biodegradable bag made of plastic? if so it will “biodegrade” into many many particles of plastic to be ingested by aquatic organisms. Where is the environmental benfit here!
Surely compostable, starch based, bags would be better.
There is one problem with starch based bags though, in that people use them after the ‘single use’ as liners for their food waste collection caddies. These bags don’t tear when fed into a bag splitter at the front point of an AD plant, instead they stretch and contaminate the feedstock. LDPE bags split and can be removed through a fairly straight forward air blower process, whereas starch bags then go on into the digester and foul the process, leading to contaminated digestate as an output. With food waste collections increasing throughout the UK, the increased use of starch based bags will cause havoc in the AD industry.
I don’t think we can expect the public to understand the difference between LDPE bags, biodegradable LDPE and starch liners.
… M
5p per bag ought to raise enough money to enable all disposable carrier bags to be made out of degradable materials. Hence even those bags that are irresponsibly discarded could have a limited impact. That assumes of course that the products of degradation are environmentally benign. Having achieved (almost) Clegg’s small milestone would it be beneficial to look to make such further improvements from there?
P. Cozens
Good piece on plastic bags, their degradability and climate impact from around 9 mins 30 sec on More or Less (20/9/13): http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03b2zbk/More_or_Less_Do_free_school_meals_work/
Beyond reductions in absolute numbers of bags used, is there any research on how charges affect consumer behaviour? Are people more likely to reuse bags or dispose of them more carefully? Also, what alternative are used and at what wider resource/climate change impact?
Data is generally pretty sparse on the ‘switches’ that consumers make, but with a reduction in single use bags, consumers are typically understood to move to LDPE or PP ‘bags for life’.
In respect of climate change implications, studies have tended to focus on plastic bags versus paper bags, with the latter having a greater impact. Obviously, such LCA studies don’t account for any of the downstream impacts such as littering.
There’s a recent working paper from Cardiff University looking at attitude change and behavioural spillover effects http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/archi/images/working%20papers/WSA-Working-Paper01-2012.pdf
Chris is right to be concerned about the exemption for biodegradable bags. This is pointless and damaging. See my post on this at MRW -http://www.mrw.co.uk/opinion/is-incentivising-biodegradable-bag-use-a-good-idea/8653184.article?blocktitle=Opinion&contentID=2198
Not only will the exemption cause problems for existing recycling schemes – it will introduce a competitive pressure for large supermarkets to move to biodegradable options.
The government has said nothing about their reasons for wanting the exemption and clearly have not thought through the implications.