Impose heavy fees on plastic bags in supermarkets

Lively interview on BBC Today Radio, Thursday, 2 August 2012:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9742000/9742259.stm

A fee of 5p introduced in Wales in October 2011 has resulted in a significant reduction (up to 90%) of plastic bags handed out by some supermarket chains. Scotland is currently holding a consultation on the issue  – why, when it looks like a no-brainer?

Maybe we should adopt Judith Holder's idea not just of charging a levy of £1 per bag, to make people remember to bring their own bags. She also feels that shoppers might be encouraged if supermarkets created a fast check-out lane for people with their own shopping bags.

We urgently need to reduce the amount of plastic stuff in our lives, much of which ends up in the oceans, where it has a devastating impact on the wildlife.
Here's a must-read article on this:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2096142/Sperm-whales-How-plastic-bags-poisoning-planets-greatest-predators.html

Oban shores full of rubbish after the storms

Following the first big storm of 2012 to hit Oban,
I ventured out along the Esplanade.  This is what I found.
Do let's try to keep packaging – and plastics – to an absolute minimum. 

A plea by Keep Scotland Tidy as seen on one of the big litter bins near the Columba Hotel

Glorious Oban Bay...

Not so glorious when you look close...

 Oban's Esplanade pavement all but impassable to pedestrians

The derelict fishing vessel completely destroyed

Swans sitting on the beach in the "Wee Oban Bay", amid litter that's been there for weeks, not just since the latest storm on 3Jan2012!

In the usual places, the rubbish eddies along with the bladderwrack

 

High time to talk rubbish

I just came across this item on the BBC Science page:

"It is time to start talking rubbish
A range of measures - some more popular than others - are needed if the UK is going to get on top of its waste problem."

I've long been shocked that huge amounts of waste go to landfill sites in this country. According to reliable sources, about six large lorries a day travel from Oban-Moleigh to Lochgilphead because the Oban landfill site is full. What a waste in every sense of the word!!!

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Burying our rubbish in huge pits in the ground is no longer an option in the 21st Century, says Stuart Wardlaw. In this week's Green Room, he argues that a range of measures - some more popular than others - is needed if the UK is going to get on top of its waste problem.

Our consumer culture does nothing to help our overflowing landfills

Research reveals that Britain is still considered the "dustbin of Europe" because it is still dumping more household waste into landfill than any other EU nation.

It threw away a staggering 22.6 million tonnes of rubbish in 2004/5; in fact, Britain sent the same amount to landfill as the 18 EU countries with the lowest landfill rates combined, despite these places having twice the population of the UK.

Britain's failure to invest in the more sustainable waste management practices based on the three Rs - re-use, recycle and recovery - has lead to an excessive dependence on landfill.

But these days are fast disappearing.

Planning and environmental permitting of landfills has been made significantly tougher with the aim of better controlling their environmental impacts.

However, this has substantially reduced the availability of suitable sites. If you compare this to our disproportionately large population to land mass ratio then, put simply, we are running out of space to dump our waste.

As a result, we may face a landfill shortage within the decade, according to the Local Government Association.

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