plastic bags II

As soon as I'd posted my blog about plastic bags this week, I came across this video (click to view). It's a spoof wildlife mockumentary on the life of a plastic bag, narrated by Jeremy Irons and made by a lobbying group in California.

California has always been at the forefront of activism against plastic bags with San Francisco the first city to ban them, back in 2007. The debate about the pros and cons of banning and taxing plastic bags has been raging ever since. Figures for 2009 showed that the number of plastic bags picked up on San Francisco streets rose slightly after the ban was introduced. 

A recent article in The Guardian (11 January 2011) compared plastic bag usage in the UK, where voluntary regulation is in place, to Ireland, where plastic bags are taxed:

"the number of bags used a month by each person in the UK dropped from 11 in 2002 to 7.2 in May 2009, but then rose again to 7.7 in May last year – equivalent to 475m bags in total per month. In Ireland, the equivalent figure – compiled from plastic bag tax receipts – has dropped from 27 in 2002 to 2 in 2009, suggesting that the tax is having a strong impact on consumer behaviour".

With Wales introducing taxes on plastic bags later this year, this one's going to run and run....