UK producers and suppliers of lightweight plastics carrier bags have welcomed the recommendation that the Scottish Parliament reject a proposed tax on plastics bags. Following two years of rigorous expert examination of a Private Member’s Bill, Scotland’s Environment and Rural Development Committee has unanimously decided not to recommend acceptance of the bill when it goes to a parliamentary vote.
The committee concluded that a levy on plastics bags “cannot achieve the clear environmental benefits we would like”, and has recommended that the parliament should not agree to the general principles of the bill.
Chairman of the UK Carrier Bag Consortium Barry Turner welcomed the decision. “In Ireland, after a similar tax, people were driven to buying bin bags because they were deprived of re-using their carrier bags as bin liners. There were also many other ways in which the environment was worse off, for example by high street retailers switching to paper. A tax on carrier bags in Scotland would have resulted in an extra 13,000t of waste going to landfill. This debate was about delivering the best environmental option and the Scottish Environment Committee were in a unique position to recognize the value of science over political spin.”
David Tyson, chief executive of the Packaging and Industrial Films Association, added: “We have now been invited by the UK Environment Minister to participate in a joint process with retailers to seek a sound environmental code of reduction, re-use and recycling. This is what we have always advocated. It works well in Australia and, with the backing of consumer education, can work well in the UK without the need to resort to taxing people and causing greater environmental impacts in the process.”
“There is no doubt that plastics bags are the best environmental choice we can make provided we keep on re-using them or put them into recycling bins afterwards.”
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