Plastic bags are a scourge of the environment and can be found littering almost every part of the globe. Now some parts of the world are taking action and banning them - but what of Britain ? Oliver Tickell reports

London , UK , October 26, 2005 (THE GUARDIAN) – The plastic carrier bag is useful, ubiquitous and, to its growing band of enemies around the world, an environmental scourge and symbol of our throwaway society. Each year, humanity gets through something like a trillion carrier bags, which together weigh approximately 5m tones and use about 50m barrels of oil to produce. Yet they are used on average for 20 minutes, after which, say the critics, the bag survives as rubbish for a further 1,000 years.

Few people have a good word for them. Floating on the ocean, they are said by marine conservation organizations to choke some 100,000 whales, seals, dolphins and turtles each year. The latter mistake them for jellyfish and eat them, only to have their guts blocked - a leatherback was washed ashore in Scotland in 1998 with seven plastic bags blocking its alimentary tract. In 2002, a minke whale that washed up on a Normandy beach had 800g of plastic waste - including two UK supermarket bags - tangled in its intestines.

But it is as litter that plastic bags most offend. The Marine Conservation Society's beachwatch surveys in 2003/04 recorded 40 plastic bags per kilometer of Britain 's coastline. Compare that to the 354,000 bags collected during a one-day international clean-up of coastal areas in the US and 100 other countries last year.

But the bag's days may be numbered. At least 40 countries or states are now known to have banned them or taken action to restrict their use. The movement began in the 1980s in Dhaka , Bangladesh , where millions of plastic bags were found to be clogging drains in the monsoons, causing terrible flooding. The city's 26 major plastic bag makers complained bitterly at proposals to outlaw them, but in March 2002 Bangladesh became the first country to ban them outright.

The case was taken up in Himachal Pradesh, in northern India , where plastic bags not only caused floods but were widely blamed for killing foraging cows. In August 2003, the state government banned them - on pain of seven years in prison or a 100,000 rupee fine (pounds 1,250). Similar laws now apply in Mumbai, Maharashtra , Sikkim , Goa , Kerala and Karnatak states.

Meanwhile, Taiwan has begun to prohibit not only plastic bags, but also disposable plastic plates, cups and cutlery used by fast-food vendors. Spurred by the threat of fines of up to TW$9,000 (pounds 152), the result has been a 70% reduction in the use of plastic bags, and a 25% cut in the volume of waste going to landfill.

Kenya is expected to ban them, after Wangari Mathaai, the 2004 Nobel peace prize winner, linked plastic bag litter with malaria. When discarded, the bags can fill with rainwater, offering ideal breeding grounds for the malaria-carrying mosquitoes. South Africa , Rwanda and the self-declared Republic of Somaliland have all banned the flimsiest bags completely.

France forges ahead

No European country has yet banned them outright, but several - including Ireland , Denmark and Switzerland - have imposed a "plastax". Last week, France went potentially the furthest, saying the bags would be completely banished after 2010. One supermarket chain has stopped providing them for more than a year without, it seems, any effect on its sales.

The UK , however, stands firmly in the "do nothing" camp - much to the distress of former environment minister Michael Meacher. "We use 8bn plastic carrier bags a year, and it is an enormous problem," he says. "They end up in the street, caught up in hedges, blowing in the wind, and are extraordinarily unsightly. It is a serious detriment to the quality of life which the government could deal with fairly easily and bring real environmental benefits."

Meacher favors a plastax based on the Irish model. In March 2002, Ireland imposed a 15 cent (9p) levy on each bag. The Irish government claims a 95% reduction in bag use from its 2001 peak of 1.2bn bags a year, and says that bags made up 5% of litter before the duty but just 0.3% today. The tax also raises some euros 10m (pounds 7m) a year for an environment fund, and enjoys wide public support.

"If we do it [in England and Wales ], the number of bags we use will go down dramatically and I think it will be very popular", Meacher says. "You have to prepare people, but if you do they will be on side."

Why did he not do it himself while in government? "I was told by the Treasury that the chancellor made policy on tax, not me," he says. "I wrote memos to the Treasury in which I gave my views. As for whether they took any interest, I don't know. We do know that they didn't do it."

But England and Wales could be left on their own. Mike Pringle, the Liberal Democrat MSP for Edinburgh South, has introduced a bill to the Scottish parliament that would impose a 10p levy on each carrier bag in Scotland . The bill is in its first of three parliamentary stages, in which the environment committee takes evidence. Today, evidence is being given by plastic bag manufacturers and the Carrier Bag Consortium (CBC), which represents the UK 's carrier bag industry.

Pringle has a fight on his hands. "At an emotional level, it sounds like a cracking good idea," says the CBC's communications director, Peter Woodall. "But by encouraging the use of paper bags, which will be exempt, the bill would create an additional 8,000 tones of waste to landfill in Scotland - and add to greenhouse gas emissions. From raw material to disposal, plastic carrier bags use minimal resources compared to any alternative."

The CBC claims that paper bags are 35 times bulkier than paper bags, and so a shift from plastic to paper will cause an extra 23,000 lorry movements a year and take up more space in landfills.

Woodall adds that a poll carried out for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs by NOP in October 2000 shows that four of five households reuse their carrier bags as bin liners, nappy bags and for other uses around the home.

"Take free carrier bags away, and people will buy other bags to replace them," he says. "Irish supermarkets have sold 75% more bin liners after the tax, and Irish customs data shows that Ireland is importing more plastic bags, not less." He also doubts Ireland 's claims of litter reduction. "In the UK , carrier bags make up well under 1% of litter. I struggle to believe that it was ever as much as 5% in Ireland ."

Environment minister Ben Bradshaw says: "The advice I have received is that case [for action] is not yet proven, but I am waiting with interest for the evaluation from the Irish on how their levy has worked, and I am also watching closely developments in Scotland ."

An independent report into Pringle's bill, commissioned by the Scottish executive, certainly supports some of the CBC's arguments. The law would reduce lightweight plastic carrier bag consumption from 800m a year to just 100m, the report says, but would create additional demand for 15m re-usable "bags for life", 90m bin liners and 174m paper bags. Polythene use would reduce by 3,500 tones a year, but paper use would increase by 8,900 tones.

It also observes that "no documented evidence is available showing a reduction in visible litter in the Republic of Ireland because of the levy". And it describes any conceivable reduction in waste to landfill as "negligible", since plastic bags account for only 0.3% of waste.

However, the report disagrees with the CBC's claim that lightweight carrier bags are the best environmental option. Disposable paper bags are the worst choice but reusable "bags for life" come out 10 times better than lightweight polythene bags after just 20 uses. It advises that the levy should be applied to paper bags as well as to lightweight carriers.

Bottom drawer

Conor Snowden, Pringle's researcher on the plastic bag bill, refutes the CBC's claim that 80% of bags are re-used. "Most bags go straight to landfill," he says. "A few may be used for picking up dog poo or carrying dirty gym shoes, but most end up in the bottom drawer, and if the drawer is full they go in the bin. People aspire to re-use their carrier bags, but they don't do it as there is no real pressure to do so."

A B&Q poll of 1,000 customers supports his view. "One in 10 Scottish respondents admitted to having up to 80 plastic carrier bags stored at home, yet no more than 10% recycled a quarter of them," it says.

A year ago, B&Q, which had been giving out 7m carrier bags a year in Scotland , introduced a 5p-per-bag charge in Scottish stores that may be adopted UK-wide. The result? An 82% fall in consumption, and a cash windfall for Keep Scotland Beautiful.

Significantly, 70% of customers are "very happy" with the scheme, with only 1.8% "very unhappy". This bodes well for Pringle's bill, which could be law as early as June 2006. And where Scotland leads, the rest of the UK could follow.