The only problem with biodegradable packaging is that it prevents reuse and so requires the use of more finite resources.
I of course understand that if 100 carrier bags go into landfill then you want them to degrade as quickly as possible, but the ultimate goal is to sell only one bag and have it used 100 times until it falls apart. That way you use less oil and only put one tatty bag into landfill.
I guess reality says that people wil not remember to take their old bags back to the supermarket (or the street market) and if you put a tax on carrier bags then some bright spark would come up with another name to avoid the tax (oil based carriage facilitator), so I guess reality says that bags will always be used by the millions so just make them fall apart quicker, so that's erm....vote BW then.

Three cheers for the BWP!

I'm voting Blue Witch!
Show me to the polling station now!

Degradable carrier bags can be reused though. Because bags are so thin these days, I doubt that even the most ardent recycler would reuse them more than 2 or 3 times for shopping - any degradable bag would last that long.

A couple of years ago, Sainsbury's trialled a recycling scheme that used bags made of tapioca. And abandoned it in favour of pushing the 'bag for life' scheme. But that doesn't seem to work particularly well - because, basically, people don't remember to take bags with them when they go shopping.

In Ireland, the levy on carrier bags has reduced the number of plastic bags being taken by consumers - but increased the number of companies now providing paper bags. Recycling those takes a lot of energy - and I'm of the opinion that bags that degrade into water and carbon dioxide are probably a more sustainable product. Until we run out of oil of course...

I wonder what impact the present record high oil prices will have on the price of plastics for packaging?

goodpoint, I guess that is a good compromise, set the degradation to a year to give the bag the opportunity for reuse.
Interesting thought, if you could extend the principle of setting the time that a bag would degrade you could have some fun setting a few at say, 1 hour, and then watch everyone's food fall out of a disappearing bag as they walk down the road.
Oh wait, that's what Tesco does already by using micro thin bags :)

It takes discipline to remember to take your reusable bags with you to the supermarket, but 9 times out of 10 we remember. It's the unscheduled supermarket visits which catch us out. I think people could make more of an effort though. I hardly *ever* see anyone using their own bags...

Lidl don't provide free carrier bags. You either search for an empty box as you're shopping or you pay for the bag. It seems to work - i.e. most people find a box or have their own bags.

Trouble is, I just don't think this would work in the larger supermarkets. It would take a brave supermarket to try it!

The first thing to do is to educate people who work the tills in supermarkets to actually ask their customers whether they require bags or not. Yesterday I went into Tesco at lunchtime and bought a small 250ml bottle of orange juice. The guy at the checkout put it into a plastic carrier bag and handed it to me. I immediately took it back out and handed the bag back to him. How ridiculous to assume that I would require a large plastic bag to carry a small plastic bottle.

From living in Ireland until last year I can confirm that the surcharge has helped greatly. Most people now have their own "green bags" and remember to use them. The paper bags are really only used by the larger consumer goods stores (clothes shops, book shops, HMV/Virgin etc).

I'm with (The other) Alan - I constantly have to tell people at checkouts that I don't need a bag. (a) I usually have a large over-the-shoulder bag with me that fits most stuff and (b) I have hands that can grasp things other than just bag handles. I recall a while ago that the Boots near where I worked had a little sign up saying that in order to save bags they were going to give them to people that asked for them. Unfortunately, that seems to have fallen by the wayside.

Oooh oooh - and how annoying is it when you have got some loose veg in your basket/trolley and then at the checkout they try to put them in little plastic bags! Then into another one! We're packaging addicts.

I remember posting once about the Marks and Spencer Simply Food store at Cannon Street where the people on the till automatically put one sandwich in a large carrier bag and couldn't even grasp the concept of someone not needing a bag. When you think of the number of sandwiches which must be sold every day, the waste is staggering. And on their bags, they even print "Please reuse this bag".

As Alan and Katherine say, let's lose the assumption and ask if someone needs a bag. It could prompt the person to think "actually, I probably *don't*" whereas they wouldn't have even thought about it otherwise...

What amazes me is if I'm buying a sandwich or a toothbrush or some such item, I pass it to the shop assistant who does th etill bit, then I hoist my rucksack onto the counter to open it to open my handbag to get out my purse.

Either they ask, or they automatically provide a plastic bag. When I say "No" or "It's okay, I don't need a carrier bag" they almost always say "No?" with a look of incredulity. So I say "No. I've got a bag already..." and they look even more surprised, despite the fact that my rucksack (bog standard JanSport model) is sitting on the
counter, already holding my handbag - there is a logic, by the way...

All plastic bags we get are either used as bin liners, or protection for things sent through the post, but mainly are taken over to his cafe so that he can pass them onto his customers - he never needs to buy plastic bags. Hopefully a proportion of his customers are also in a reduce-reuse cycle.

I don't think that Sainsbury's make nearly enough of their '1p back if you reuse a bag' scheme.

I think *all* retailers should do this - but make it 2p off the bill per bag not used.

We always use bags at least twice at The Coven. I just could not bring myself to ever put one straight in the 'goes to landfill' rubbish bin.

The Boots in nearest small town used to have notices up saying that people would be asked if they wanted bags, as Katherine mentions. A few months back I asked the manager why they'd disappeared - and was told it was "because asking holds up the queue when we're busy, and because my staff were getting abuse from customers because they asked."

The other day in Smiths the guy asked me if I wanted a bag for my paper, I said no thanks and he gave me one anyway. Today in the paper I see that plastic recycle materials are sent to China to be burnt on large bonfires - not what we expect happens to them when we sort them out carefully at this end! But I always take a plastic box to the supermarket to put the shopping in, it should last years.

I used to reuse all our carrier absg, turning up at our branch of S@insbury's looking a weird bag lady, in very conservative Surrye. Now that we live in green Devon, I'm such a slob that I usually forget to take bags with me, and then guiltily use more. When I go shopping, I infortunately doN't have the choice of popping it all in a shoulder bag, or I'd probably give myself a hernia and spoil most of it.

We do have a load of cotton bags habnded out by Devon CC in an effort to curb waste, byt sadly they're generally at home when I'm at the shop, and it's too far to nip back for them.

My (recent) solution has been to get a vegetable box delivered- the box goes back and is reused, and almost everything comes in biodegradable card containers or recycled paper bags.

I must start reusing bags- we do already use them in the kitchen bin to chuck away the vast amount of unrecyclable plastic (wrapping around veg etc) that we seemed to generate until we got the box. That's only one reuse though. The main problem is that by the time I get them to the shop, they're generally muddy and infit to use around food. Although it is wrapped in plastic etc...

I'm just making excuses here, aren't I?

And Leclerc, one of the largest supermarkets chains in France, does not provide carrier bags unless you provide quite a large amount of cash for a sturdy re-useable one. That's as though Siansbury's did the same thing. It does concentrate the mind most wonderfully.

Our Sainsburys don't do the 1p thing any more... I assumed they'd all given it up.

I'm pretty sure that my former employers EvilWorlwideFoodCo developed a corn based biodegradable bag.... obviously never found a market for it. A shame as a biodegradable bag from renewable resources would be a major step forward.

Ditto, Gert.

Vote BW.

James :-)=

When I worked behind the till at an evil supermarket, I would always ask if people wanted a carrier bag, unless it was obvious they weren't going to be able to carry it out to the car easily.

When I go shopping now I usually have a fabric bag or two with me, which I can fit most things in. A friend and I have gone halves on an organic vegetable box, and I tend to go to the local butchers for meat now rather than the supermarket. Working my way round to an environmentally friendlier lifestyle.

Not objecting as such, but did I not read somewhere that the biodegradable bags would not degrade buried in a landfill, the process requires oxygen and even if it does take place it produces methane which we also don't want (greenhouse gas and all that).

Re-use seems to be the only way to go.

Except methane produced from landfill is gathered and used for electricity generation, so it's not all bad news. (Yes burning it will create C02, but that's a less powerful greenhouse gas than CH4)