Do you agree with the UK plastic bag tax?

It is all very well for all the money raised to go to charity except that only means the high ups in the charities will absorb it into expenses and all the rest. It will be the big charities who will get this money not the local donkey sanctuary or a neighbourhood collection for a child's cancer treatment or whatever.

I would be more excited by the whole concept if it was to be a case of money raised locally shared out locally. I'd be even more happy if the big supermarkets had to give the equivilant of any money raised in food to local foodbanks of which there are more opening each week..

i don't know the UK plastic bag tax. I'll tell you my situation in the US.

My city has a plastic bag ban and 10cent tax on paper bags.

- Stores of x size are not allowed to give out plastic bags, but small stores can still give out plastic bags and stores, like warehouse stores, can still sell plastic bags (like Costco can sell a box of 1500 plastic bags).

- If you want a paper bag, you have to pay 10c. Remember before the ban the stores gave out the paper & plastic bags for free.

- The 10c is divided in 5 cents the store gets to keep and the other 5 cents goes to the city's general fund.

It is very rare to see plastic bag trash around.

My idea:

- If we have a plastic bag ban, all stores besides grocery stores and restaurants, should not be able to use plastic bags. And the warehouse stores should not be able to easily sell them.

- the stores should also have a choice if they want to charge the 5c tax, that they get to keep instead of it being dictated by the city.

- the 5c that the city gets should not go into the general fund. It should be earmarked for beach/park clean up.

And finally = the ban was cold turkey. One day stores could give plastic bags and the next they couldn't. About 6 months after the ban took place, I was at a big box store and they were using plastic bags. I asked "what's up". They said they had a storeroom full of them and could not figure out how to get rid of them. It would have been expensive to have them trucked to another store, so they finally started using the bags to exhaust their inventory.

- the ban should not have been as cold turkey... what did the other stores do??

This was proposed more than 20 years ago. These bags will still be around in a 100 years. They are clogging up rubbish tips and killing sea life. They do NOT break down. Instead of moaning why don't you read up about the damage they do to YOUR environment. The bags you get at Tesco today will still be around when you have Grandchildren.

UK

It is an excellent idea. And BTW, the proposal is for England only. Wales has had one since 2011 and Northern Ireland since April 2013. And how do you enforce a reusable bag rule? And even though paper bags are used in some places in the States, they often use both (!) and even though the paper is biodegrade-able, it actually takes MORE resources to make and transport paper bags.

Most bags seem to be degradable, ones I used to put some things in my shed were, they were from Tesco 3 years ago, when I went to get something from them around 2 years later they had turned into dust ??

No one is making you use them, the oceans are chocking on them. Get used to living responsibly.

All the money goes to charity, not the government.