...for the use of Plastic Bags? I had heard that some parts (at least) of Britain make you pay for each plastic bag you use. As a studier of economics, I see this as a great economic deterrent and incentive to not use plastic bags so that resources can be diverted elsewhere for more efficiency. We could use the money in other things than polluting our environment with plastic bags.
If you were charged $0.50 per plastic bag, what could you do?? People have said to me "The horror! It would be a burden on me because I need the money for food for my family!! That's a STUPID idea." Well, if you go to a store like Walmart and buy one of their "environmentally green and re-usable" bags for $1.00, not only would you cut down on plastic bags, but it would be safer for the environment. So you spend $20 for 20 bags you may or may not use all at once. They would last you months; maybe even years.
"But I always forget my 1 green bag!" There's no incentive to remember. What's going to happen? Momentary guilt and just using (free) plastic bags? I'm sure someone shopping would remember if they were forced to pay $0.50 per bag, for 10 bags, where its $5.00 extra on their tab.
Lets go into a hypothetical situation here and assume everyone receives 10 plastic bags a week (grocery bags.) They use 1 per week for the bathroom. They do not recycle. They'd receive 520 bags a year, and use 52 bags per year for the bathroom. That's 468 bags tossed out.
If around 4 billion other people did the same, that's 1,872,000,000,00 plastic bags tossed out every year. The environmental costs are massive, and the pollutants are no doubt crazy.
I'm not sure at what extent the pollutants unleashed for producing green bags would be, but it has to be more than plastic.
As someone who worked retail for a couple years, I've had people say "Please put this in a bag." It was one item. ONE item that was small enough to fit in their hand. I've even had people get pissed that I didn't ask them if they wanted a bag for one small item or two. i think plastic bags just reinforce an unneeded necessity that seems absolutely important to daily life.
If you were charged $0.50 per plastic bag, what could you do?? People have said to me "The horror! It would be a burden on me because I need the money for food for my family!! That's a STUPID idea." Well, if you go to a store like Walmart and buy one of their "environmentally green and re-usable" bags for $1.00, not only would you cut down on plastic bags, but it would be safer for the environment. So you spend $20 for 20 bags you may or may not use all at once. They would last you months; maybe even years.
"But I always forget my 1 green bag!" There's no incentive to remember. What's going to happen? Momentary guilt and just using (free) plastic bags? I'm sure someone shopping would remember if they were forced to pay $0.50 per bag, for 10 bags, where its $5.00 extra on their tab.
Lets go into a hypothetical situation here and assume everyone receives 10 plastic bags a week (grocery bags.) They use 1 per week for the bathroom. They do not recycle. They'd receive 520 bags a year, and use 52 bags per year for the bathroom. That's 468 bags tossed out.
If around 4 billion other people did the same, that's 1,872,000,000,00 plastic bags tossed out every year. The environmental costs are massive, and the pollutants are no doubt crazy.
I'm not sure at what extent the pollutants unleashed for producing green bags would be, but it has to be more than plastic.
As someone who worked retail for a couple years, I've had people say "Please put this in a bag." It was one item. ONE item that was small enough to fit in their hand. I've even had people get pissed that I didn't ask them if they wanted a bag for one small item or two. i think plastic bags just reinforce an unneeded necessity that seems absolutely important to daily life.