Position Statement
on Plastic Bags
In
Brief
Plastic bags are often dominating environmental
headlines. In recent years, a number of political initiatives (national and
local) have been taken, involving proposals to impose a levy or ban on plastic
shopping bags in Uganda.
Within this context of an increased interest on
this issue, Uganda Retailers and
Wholesalers Association (URWA)
intends through this paper to give its view on this highly sensitive political
issue.
Based on various facts and figures as well as the
expertise accumulated by its members throughout the country, Uganda Retailers and
Wholesalers Association’s position on carrier plastic bags can be summarized as
follows:
• Neither the imposition of a mandatory levy or ban on plastic bags
nor the promotion of biodegradable plastic bags constitute adequate
tools to reduce the environmental impact of plastic bags used by consumers
• Efforts to achieve environmental improvements should include initiatives
involving the business sector which can be developed in constructive
collaboration with the local authorities and government. They prove to be more
effective especially when they are combined with raising awareness and
education campaigns as well as the promotion of reusable bags.
About plastic bags
Definition
A plastic
shopping bag is a polymer carry bag provided or utilized at the retail point of
sale for carrying and transporting retail goods and which is only intended for
one way use. This includes all single use plastic retail bags, but excludes
produce bags used in-store, dry cleaning bags, garbage bags and other primary
product packaging.1
General Comments
Because of their light weight, plastic
bags only constitute a tiny percentage of the overall waste stream but they
tend to be in the spotlight because they are an icon of modern convenience
culture and lifestyles. Plastic bags only relate to 0.01% of the municipal
waste stream so any legislative measures in addition to the general obligations
from the respective national packaging legislation, appear disproportionate to
the environmental benefit that they would bring compared to tackling other,
larger waste streams. Often putting in place high profile measures on such a
small proportion of the waste stream risks giving the wrong environmental
message because consumers may think they are "doing their bit" by
reducing or reusing bags and ignore the rest of their environmental impacts,
which could be far more significant.
Plastic bags are popular with consumers
and retailers because of all the practical advantages they offer; they are
light, cheap, strong, and a hygienic way to transport food and products home.
Moreover, several studies have shown that consumers use a high percentage of
these plastic shopping bags to hold kitchen waste prior to depositing it in
their waste bins for collection and recycling. For example, URWA estimate that
4 out of 5 Ugandan consumers reuse their single use carrier bags in the home,
so any taxation system must take account of the impact on purchases of other
plastic bags for the home such as refuse sacks.
Views on the environmental impact of
plastic bag consumption vary greatly. Whereas some consider that they are just
a nuisance, others believe they are a real hazard that should be banned. This
is also reflected in the variety of instruments used to tackle the plastic bag
issue.
The main arguments against plastic bags
are linked to the littering issue in some countries as well as the persistence
in landfill. They are also attacked because they have become the symbol of
modern society’s unsustainable lifestyles. And finally the environmental impact
linked to the consumption of raw materials and the production process is also
pointed at.
Various measures have been taken in
order to address the above-mentioned impacts with more or less success. These
measures can be categorized as follows:
•
Ban
on plastic bags
•
Market-based
instruments (mandatory or agreed on a voluntary basis) such as the use of
taxation or charges
•
Awareness
raising campaigns
•
Infrastructure
to deal with end of life plastic bags (i.e. producer responsibility schemes)
•
Promotion
of certain types of plastic bags (i.e. biodegradable plastic bags)
o Offering reusable bags as alternative to the
consumer
o Voluntary agreements between government and
industry
Ban
A ban is a very powerful tool in
environmental policy but is also radical and market intrusive and should
therefore only be used as a last resort. It should therefore be deployed only
when there are substantial environmental grounds for such a measure based on Life
cycle assessment (LCA) results, which is not the case for plastic bags.
Before introducing a ban it is important
to propose effective and practical alternatives to consumers to carry their
shopping home but most importantly to consider the various consequences of the
ban. The ban of plastic bags can indeed stimulate the use of other types of
bags and nets with greater environmental impacts.
Moreover, a ban on one product in a
particular material - such as the plastic carrier bag - cannot reduce the
problem of litter. Litter consists of many different fractions of which the
plastic carrier bag accounts for only a small proportion. Of the total volume
of plastic carrier bags, only a tiny percentage ends up as litter. Solving
littering requires other measures such as awareness raising campaigns against
littering.
Finally, a ban would be illegal under
the some laws (the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive) as every packaging
which fulfills the Essential Requirements is allowed to be used all over the country.
Taxation
The power of market-based instruments to
change behaviour is undeniable but there must be a clear link between the
instrument adopted and the environmental aim being pursued. The suitability of
a measure should be carefully evaluated and benchmarked vis-Ã -vis other
available options and the costs of the measures proposed should be
proportionate to their environmental benefit. The use of economic instruments
such as taxation should not be used for the primary purpose of raising revenue
for the state.
Introducing a levy on plastic bags may
reduce their consumption in the short term but proves to be unsustainable in
the long run. For example, Ireland introduced a levy on plastic bags in 2002
mainly to reduce litter. The levy had the desired effect in the first years
with a sharp drop in plastic bags usage (95%) and a shift to reusable bags.
However, after some years, plastic bag usage started to increase again
slightly, which pushed the Irish government to increase the levy in 2007.
Changes in legislation are in the process of being introduced which will allow
for an increase in the levy to 44€-c.
One further issue with any taxation or
levy fee system is deciding how the revenue raised should be used. Often this
income just goes into general taxation rather than for any environmental
benefit.
From this perspective, voluntary
agreements with retailers including realistic short term reduction targets and
long term ambitious goals are more sustainable solutions. For example they
appear to be working well in the UK, where leading high street and grocery
retailers exceeded their voluntary target (facilitated through WRAP) to reduce
the environmental impact of carrier bags by 25% by the end of 2008. Since the
commitment in 2006, retailers actually delivered a 40% reduction in the
environmental impact of carrier bags. This was achieved through an absolute reduction
in the number of carrier bags distributed to customers by 26% and simultaneous
efforts to increase the recycled content of single use bags and reductions in
their overall weight. Similarly in France, the amount of plastic bags decreased
by 85% between 2000 and 2008 without introducing any taxation or ban.
(3
When France tried to introduce a decree including a general ban on the
distribution of non-biodegradable single-use carrier bags to end consumers in
2006, the European Commission considered it was contrary to article 18 of the
Directive on Packaging and Packaging Waste which states that Member States
shall not impede the placing on the market of their territory of packaging
which satisfies the provisions of this Directive. The European Commission added
that the measures envisaged in the French decree lacked proportionality.)
In general, any measure implemented in
relation to plastic bags should therefore be based on voluntary agreements with
the industrial sectors.
Producer responsibility
Successful alternative economic
instruments, such as producer responsibility-based systems should be further
taken into consideration when environmental impacts of plastic bags are
considered. These systems have indeed proven to be more effective in triggering
environmental improvement than taxation, in a cost-effective and flexible way.
The environmental impact linked to the
consumption of raw materials and production processes can be best offset by
high levels of material recycling and energy recovery. In cases where a
collection system for plastic packaging including plastic films is in place
plastic bags can be integrated within this system and can therefore be part of
the solution. These systems can indeed use several technological solutions that
allow the recovery and recycling of plastic bags and therefore reduce the flow
of plastic shopping bags into landfill and litter. The environmental impact of
plastic bags is lowest when these are recycled or incinerated with energy
recovery alongside other plastic waste.
Solutions to the plastic bags issue
should therefore involve the improvement of plastics recycling and efforts from
the authorities should be geared towards developing a market for reprocessing
plastics.
Consumer communications
An important part of the solution to the
impacts of plastic bags is to produce a permanent change in behaviour by
engaging customers through education and encouragement. It is necessary to
drive forward local communications and information campaigns to raise consumer
awareness of the issue, associated problems like littering and appropriate
solutions. In the UK the Government funded a national campaign known as ‘Get a
bag habit’ to encourage consumer behaviour change.
In order for any national or local
campaign to achieve success it also needs to be complemented by ensuring that
alternative reusable bags are readily available to consumers at a reasonable
cost. In most of the western countries these alternatives are widely available
and commonly used.
Retailers can
play an important role in encouraging consumers to change their consumption
habits in this regards. They can be involved in the development of
communications strategies that would educate and motivate consumers to consume
less one-way plastic shopping bags and prefer more sustainable options to carry
their goods home.
Also, some retailers have sought to
encourage their customers to be greener through the use of additional reward points
when using reusable carrier bags in their store. In France, an awareness
campaign towards consumers (including training cashiers) has led to the almost
complete disappearance of plastic bags in shops.
Any measure implemented in relation to
plastic bags should therefore proactively involve consumers.
Biodegradable bags
There is an increasing enthusiasm for
biodegradable plastic bags due to the growing perception that they are more
environmentally friendly. A shift to these types of bags would not reduce the
amount of bags discarded as litter. On the contrary, they can potentially add
on to the litter problem as the consumer may believe that they just “break down
and disappear” after disposal. Moreover, biological degradation without the
required condition (micro-organism, temperature and humidity) is very slow and
can take several years.
With regards to their sustainability,
biodegradable bags are often described as environmentally superior to
traditional plastic bags although this assumption is not implicitly correct.
Being biodegradable or biomass based is not synonymous with being
environmentally friendly or sustainable. Life cycle assessment (LCA) studies
have demonstrated that bio-based plastic bags are not more sustainable than
fossil-based plastic bags.
Finally, biodegradable bags offer no
advantage in terms of waste management over conventional ones. In fact they
could damage existing collection and recycling systems for plastic packaging.
They need to be sorted separately otherwise they contaminate the other plastic
waste and harm the quality of the recycled output.
National authorities promoting these
types of bags and retailers using these new materials therefore have a
responsibility for introducing them in a responsible and coordinated manner so
that previous education efforts for waste prevention and recycling are not
undermined.
Conclusions
Focusing on plastic bags is in general a
very limited approach because they only constitute a tiny part of the overall
waste. A more holistic approach is needed than imposing a ban on plastic bags
or a levy to address the plastic bags issue.
Consumers need to be given a better
understanding of the relative environmental impacts of their lifestyles in
order to make effective choices. The imposition of a mandatory levy or ban on
plastic bags, or the promotion of biodegradable plastic bags, do not constitute
adequate tools to reduce the environmental impact of plastic bags used by consumers.
Efforts to achieve environmental
improvements should include voluntary agreements between government and
industry. They prove to be more effective especially when they are combined
with raising awareness and education campaigns as well as the promotion of
reusable bags.
