Forum Topic

Bravo M&S for deciding to charge for single-use carriers

(front page story)www.messageinthewaves.com is the BBC Natural History film which changed the minds of the people of Modbury in Devon.The Daily Mail has articles this week on the damage done together with photos of reasons to stop this thoughtless excessive and unnecessary use of carrier bags.It is a just a shame it is only 5p but I suppose it needs to be less than a Bag for Life (which in Sainsbury's is 10p).  The money is going to the charity Groundwork. M&S will be giving away reusable bags just before they start. There are many reusable bags now available - recently I have seen both jute and cotton ones in Oxfam and cotton Fairtrade ones in the Co-op.

Philippa Bond ● 6790d33 Comments

Reuseable bags do very well if they are used in conjunction with a private car - checkout to trolley to car boot.However, and this is a BIG however, if a car is not available the probability of placing those bags on the footpath or floor of a public conveyance, train, bus , tram, etc, is very high.I would suggest even with the greatest efforts of our incumbent council that Ealing's pavements, and the floors of public transport that passes through the borough, are not of the highest standard of hygiene.This why disposable plastic have a valuable place in environmental health.This of course is negated when a bag, reusable or otherwise is placed on a table top for unpacking. Whatever has been picked up from the underside, being in contact with footpaths or floors, such as chewing gum, dog sh*t, saliva, sputum, and the like, will be transferred to aforementioned table top. With a reusable bag so coated this will be every time.The energy cost of disposable plastic bags at point of use must be insignificant compared to the cost of a jute (or cotton) bag over its lifetime. Plastic bags are made in the UK, jute/cotton bags have to be freighted in. No wonder we might need a third runway. Or will Brentford Dock be reopened to cope with demand? What would they say in Chiswick and Hammersmith as all those dhows queue up to get under Hammersmith Bridge at low tide?What is a fairtrade bag? For fairtrade produce? And can one get "organic" approved ones? Obviously for organic produce.

Alan Brainsby ● 6790d

There is nothing to stop you putting your bag down on the floor when you empty it or if that is too low a chair or a stool. You can put a newspaper down first.What I would question is why so many people nowadays do not wash their hands after they go to the loo or before they eat.Also why do you see the floors in hospital being constantly polished and do not see handrails, doorplates, telephones, mice and lightswitches - places where many people put their hands - being cleaned anything like as often.

Philippa Bond ● 6790d

There is nothing to stop you putting your bag down on the floor when you empty it... except commonsense.Regarding  lavatories available to the public, railway sttions, pubs, theatres, etc: after washing one's hands why does one have to PULL the exit doors open?I think we all know the answer to hospital hygiene but it would be considered racist to comment, so I won't.Polishing a floor makes it shiny. It doesn't clean it.

Alan Brainsby ● 6790d

BTW have you noticed the difference the structural design of a bag makes to its stability when placed on the floor/ground?  The gussetted one definitely wins.You have to PULL the doors open to get your hands dirty again - just as when you turn the taps off with clean hands after turning them on with dirty ones.  Why don't hospitals have more more sensible taps?Several years ago I saw a pedal bin being opened by hand in the Intensive Care Unit of a major hospital (not Ealing) by a very highly qualified member of staff.  I then made a point of investigating all the pedal bins that I came across in that hospital and complained when my relative had left.  Pedal bins are designed to be opened with a foot for a very good reason.  These pedal bins were not working and the staff lifted the lid because they were used to this situation. I would blame poor management and maintenance. Oh but shiny floors do look nice!

Philippa Bond ● 6790d

I'm not stating my opinion but looking at it from a slightly different angle.Can you be too clean and therefore not build up resistance to common germs? I've heard of a doctor saying, on the radio,that the best thing you can do is toss your meat on the kitchen floor before cooking it.

Peter Wright ● 6790d

Yes I believe you can be too clean.  It must depend on how clean your kitchen floor is though!  You also need to be well.Hospitals though are very different.  Sick people have enough to cope with without any extra and unnecessary bugs.

Philippa Bond ● 6790d

Hospital taps amuse me, but for the wrong reasons.Hands washing basins are equipped with lever arm taps. The purpose of this style is to operate the tap hands-free, using one's elbows instead. It would be helpful if ALL the staff were instructed in this and not just a few.I agree that overly clean premises are not necessary. However it is a question of eliminating the most dangerous organisms or certainly not allowing sufficient numbers of them to exist to cause problems (potentially it only takes one bacterium to cause infection).I remember while I was a patient in Hammersmith Hospital, 6 years ago, several features of note. These are some of my observations in of the post-cardiac operation recovery ward (not the ICCU ward).The same mop/bucket/water was used to wipe the whole floor of the ward.The curtain screen tracks produced clouds of dust when they were brushed.The protective metal sheets over the bed control mechanisms (underneath the bed) were filthy.Regarding hospital maintenance, don't ask. There seem to be as many problems with loose fittings, badly installed doors, leaking roofs, as I put up with when I was in the laboratory service 40 years ago.BTW will M&S provide cleaning staff to wipe the checkouts after each customer who places a dirty bag on the exit surface? Or haven't they thought of that problem?

Alan Brainsby ● 6789d

Alan - hand washing basins SHOULD and COULD be provided with the lever arm taps.  A lot aren't.  Then ALL the staff instructed as you say. My son's nursing friends have been learning to go through all of the handwashing procedures in their sleep as far as I hear.  Whether after all that they know how to turn the taps on and off I will have to ask!The fabric of the curtains around the beds can harbour bugs.  I used to know how long MRSA could live there.  The obsession with the floors when there is so much else that needs cleaning is flabbergasting.When I was in the West London 20+ years ago I was on the point of changing a lightbulb myself I was so fed up with going to the loo in the dark.  I think that forms in triplicate had to be sent off to get such a simple thing done.  If I could have reached I suspect I would have done. I certainly couldn't have done any climbing then.I remember having the rails above the bed cleaned when I was in it more recently which I didn't really appreciate. Isn't there some sort of machine now for cleaning the undersides of the beds?  BTW You'd better not queue behind me at the supermarket!!!!

Philippa Bond ● 6789d

You can get taps that are activated merely by placing the hands under the tap or by placing your foot on a peddle on the floor, not forgetting the alcohol hand rinse points all over the place in hospitals these days.But as for supermarkets, anyone could have touched that bunch of grapes or those peaches.

Peter Wright ● 6789d

Automatic taps are a bit too expensive and advanced for the "blacksmith" technology of hospital maintenance.Another example of hospital repair was the automatic revolving door at the entrance of Haematology. It broke in 2007. It took four months to repair it. And we wonder why the NHS is a bottomless money pit.Regarding mauled fruit: it's probably why we are advised to wash fruit before eating. Not so much to wash pesticide off but other persons' fecal, nasal, and God knows what contaminants.I doubt that we would ever consider sterilizing food packaging before storing it but one day, one day...

Alan Brainsby ● 6789d

The automatic taps in the loos at the Ealing Broadway Centre are brilliant but I would still be nervous about that sort of technology and hospital use and maintenance.  It seems to be very difficult to get anything mended.Kim and Aggie did a marvellous job at Ealing hospital and on TV of showing how people don't wash their hands often enough or well enough (and pointing out other problems).  I still think there is a lot more work to be done with pointing this out. Someone who does not know their way around a hospital should help position signs. (At the last hospital I visited I decided that while looking at direction signs on the ceiling you can walk right past the gel.) Unfortunately as I understand it alcohol gel does not work for everything - in particular C Diff.

Philippa Bond ● 6789d

Alcohol gel does not work for everything - in particular C. Diff.Alcohol gel is not a very efficient sterilizer so why is it used? The smell perhaps, expensively reassuring. Steam is efficient! But I think autoclaving one's hands would be a little excessive, not to say uncomfortable.Ordinary soap works perfectly well if the hands are thoroughly cleansed. This means care and time as theatre staff take. Of course if latex gloves are worn and changed between patient contact that is an added bonus.

Alan Brainsby ● 6789d

look at this:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/somerset/7270565.stm

Alan Brainsby ● 6789d

I heard this on the radio.This sounds just like today's teenagers to me. Today's university students. They have been out socialising until the early hours and reek of alcohol and cigarettes in the morning.  Perhaps it was the 45p for vodka and Red Bull at the Student Union night or another of the promotional nights. The way nurses are trained has changed. It seems to be much more university based with periods of time spent on the wards. No parent to call them to order, no headmaster/mistress - so where was matron?What is a dedicated professional?  And what is a dedicated professional dedicated to nowadays?  I don't think it is the same as it once was.  Everybody professional or not seems to be much more dedicated to themselves.Who in their right minds is going to complain at the time? You are just grateful to be getting some attention to your needs.  You are in a very vulnerable position. You have to get you or yours safely out first.

Philippa Bond ● 6789d

Definitely not bravo to M & S - this is just posturing on a grand scale on their part - a totally empty gesture as all they are doing is putting a tax of 5p on plastic bags; all it will do is lead to an increase in the use of paper bags and boxes and this is much less planet friendly. We need to keep our trees.  Every item we buy in M & S (and other supermarkets) is sealed inside plastic/polystyrene or similar wrapping so it's a bit of an own goal. We need to educate people about chucking litter, not ban plastic bags because some littler lout decides to throw it somewhere inappropriate. We can't un-invent the plastic bag - it is cheap, hygienic, convenient and lightweight - by far the best shopping bag. I'll continue shopping in M & S, but I will make sure I bring a Tesco plastic bag - or one from another competitor, preferably a much cheaper one!

S. D. Brock ● 6787d

You've raised a good point Alan.  According to a recent study by Charles Gerba, a professor of environmental sciences at the University of Arizona, 30 per cent of women’s handbags contain 100 million particles of faecal matter per square inch on their surface, probably from being placed on the floors of public toilets.

James de Vivenot ● 6787d

There is usually a hook on the back of the cubicle door.

Philippa Bond ● 6786d

I do reuse plastic bags if they are still clean from their previous use.Recently I went shopping in Sainsbury WE with a Safeway carrier. Remember, white, green and red? Did I get some funny looks! More than usual, actually :)Question 1: If we don't have access to plastic bags how are we to segregate our recycled material?Question 2: If plastic bags are a nuisance for landfill and should be taxed then why shouldn't a tax be applied to bricks? Plastic bags may lurk for up to 1 000 years but Roman bricks  are still around after 2 000 years! And most of them are underground.

Alan Brainsby ● 6786d

Phillipa, this is much worse than leaving it on the floor, think of the dozens of unwashed hands that have previously unhooked! I know, totally gross!  Best to keep it strapped on your shoulder.  I always wash my hands, then wash the tap, then wash my hands again, very OCD.

S. D. Brock ● 6786d

I used to separate everything for recycling into carriers when we first had the green box but I have gradually changed what I do and this is what currently happens: I now put all my flattened cartons inside a larger carton.  I have just flattened the last egg box to put it inside.Sometimes I alternate between putting cardboard out and putting paper out.  Sometimes I alternate between putting glass out or tins out.  I always flatten the cans. (You mustn't do this of course with aerosols!)I always seem to have a holey plastic carrier bag or the bag the loo rolls came in for the plastic - or I use another green box.  The only plastic bag I ever use in the green box nowadays is a see-through one which goes in when it has been filled with batteries - and this isn't very often.I used a Safeway carrier too recently!  I was wondering if they could be sold on ebay!

Philippa Bond ● 6786d

Yes, but I wouldn't want it to get soggy.  Nearly everything nowadays can go in a wahing machine or be washed down including any cloth bags.  Just imagine a generation ago when everything used to be just brushed down - but then maybe everybody washed their hands more often!In retrospect I remember thinking that the taps in the ladies in Ikea must have been some sort of initiative test recently as I couldn't work out how to work it.  No - I had just chosen the one nearest the door out and that one wasn't working. The rest worked automatically when you put your hands underneath.  So they must be improving areas of in heavy use.  Will it be safe soon to trust hospital maintenance with them?  This sort of technology must be the way forward.

Philippa Bond ● 6786d

The Newspapers seem to be climbing on to the 'Bag Wagon'with enviro-friendly bags, needless to say with the appropriate logo. The Telegraph has a 'Stella' bag doesn't suit my image! The Mail, bit too OTT for me. the Guardian? Arrrggghhh!!!.So I got an Independant bag, that'll fool the Chiswick  Thought Police 'cos it will keep my Telegraph warm and dry!!

Colin Vaughan ● 6786d

The Guardian! Doesn't one have to be on a diet of lentils and use wooden lavatory seats to read it?That's the next thing to  ban - plastic lavatory seats. Easily cleanable, woodworm-proof - so there aren't holes to fill with you-know-what* - but will last forever in a landfill site. Far longer than a plastic bag or a Fletton (type of brick).*Don't laugh - research was done in the UK regarding wooden lavatory seats in schools. I only refer to the findings.

Alan Brainsby ● 6786d

Further to my remarks about plastic lavatory seats I add the following data.An average plastic seat and lid weighs about 2.5 kg. a plastic carrier bag weighs 5 g. So 500 carriers weigh the same as a seat/lid combo.The surface area of a set/lid is approximately the same a carrier bag, the bag having an inside, don't forget.A bag is about 40 microns (OK "micrometers" if you do the OU) whereas the average thickness of a lavatory seat is approximately 1 000 microns (1cm). Therefore a lavatory seat/lid is 250 times thicker.Assuming it takes 1 000  years to decompose a plastic carrier, assuming the degradation occurs on both sides of the plastic simultaneouly, then it will take 250 000 years to decompose a seat/lid. You will notice some of the data given is (OK "are" if you do the OU) irrelevant to the calculation.Is this what we want for our gggggggggg-greatgrandchildren? The landscape to be covered in spoil tips of lavatory seats?Perhaps we could treat them as time capsules by writing non-degradable messages on them, I'm sure we can all think of some suitable lavatorial humour!A sobering thought: we use 13 000 000 000 carriers a year. By weight (65 000 tonnes) that's equivalent to 26 000 000 lavatory seats which is roughly the number installed in private housing.Just suppose we all changed our seats on a yearly basis, for reasons of hygiene etc, then what would the government do?

Alan Brainsby ● 6786d

Since you can now get lavatory seats with bubbles or fish and all sorts of things deliberately and artistically set into the plastic I am sure someone could come up with something interesting to put on them.  Your calculations?I always dreamed that someone would invent a heated lavatory seat but instead they have invented heating for every room of the house.  Things don't always go the way you expect.  I doubt if we are all going to change them every year.  Think about cleaning them more often or better perhaps considering C Diff and other bugs.

Philippa Bond ● 6785d

Heated lavatory seat, my ****!!!That's what a wife is for!Have you ever seen the film "If". It's set in a boarding school. There's a classic bit where one of the prefects instructs his fag to warm a lavatory seat.I will admit I don't replace our seats very often but they do get blasted by the steam cleaner regularly. That warms them up as well. Perhaps my wife is redundant...A useful notice that could be placed on the lid would be: "Please check for lavatory paper before committing!"Rather than my interesting calculations, how about a combination lock?

Alan Brainsby ● 6785d

Ireland introduced a 15 cents per bag levy on plastic bags in 2002.It has been a great success.BBC Website :Tuesday, 20 August, 2002, 14:36 GMT 15:36 UK Irish bag tax hailed success "A tax on plastic shopping bags in the Republic of Ireland has cut their use by more than 90% and raised millions of euros in revenue, the government says. "The tax of 15 cents per bag was introduced five months ago in an attempt to curb litter, and the improvement had been immediate and "plain to see", said Environment Minister Martin Cullen. "The levy has been an outstanding success in achieving what it set out to do "Environment Minister Martin Cullen said that the 3.5 million euros in extra revenue raised so far would be spent on environmental projects. "The "plastax" is being closely watched by other countries, particularly neighbouring Britain. "Bangladesh has banned polythene bags altogether while Taiwan and Singapore are taking steps to discourage their use. "The levy has been an outstanding success in achieving what it set out to do," said Mr Cullen. "Over one billion plastic bags will be removed from circulation while raising funding for future environmentally friendly initiatives." "He added: "It is clear that the levy has not only changed consumer behaviour in relation to disposable plastic bags, it has also raised national consciousness about the role each one of us can, and must play if we are to tackle collectively the problems of litter and waste management." "The environment ministry estimated that about 1.2 billion free plastic bags were being handed out every year in the republic, leaving windblown bags littering Irish streets and the countryside. "In the three months after the tax was introduced, shops handed out just over 23 million plastic bags - about 277 million fewer than normal, the government said. "Free bags are often discarded thoughtlessly "Shoppers are being encouraged to use tougher, reusable bags. "The ministry said that if the current trend continued, the tax would bring in 10 million euros in a full year. "Other countries around the world are also taking action to curb plastic bag litter. "In March, Bangladesh banned polythene bags after it was found that they were blocking drainage systems and had been a major culprit during the 1988 and 1998 floods that submerged two-thirds of the country. "Taiwan and Singapore are also moving to ban free plastic bags and in South Africa they have been dubbed the "national flower" because so many can be seen flapping from fences and caught in bushes. "M& S are five years behind the Irish but M&S, Lidl, Aldi and others are still way ahead of Gormless Dithering Gordon Brown.

David Giles ● 6784d

I have just realized what those smelly pink bags from the council are for, and they are probably self-sterilizing!

Alan Brainsby ● 6784d

Self-sterilizing?  They're hardly keeping it to themselves.Why do we hear:  "When I'm at home in Ireland I always take my bags with me when I go shopping" so often.  It couldn't possibly be because having to pay is an incentive to take them, could it?

Philippa Bond ● 6784d

Total nonsense, David - you should do your homework before you cut and paste Irish government propoganda - or do you always accept wholesale the dishonest massaged figures produced by government spin doctors?  Irelan's littering problem has increased to horrendous proportions.

S. D. Brock ● 6784d

Sheila,Anyone who knows me will tell you that I am probably one of the last Irish people to spout Irish Government propaganda ! However, in this instance Iteland is indeed well ahead of the UK.The Irish plastic bag levy is charged in the shop when people buy their groceries or other purchases and use the bags to bring them home. Irish people like myself maintain a supply of bags in their houses and or in their cars they use time and time again. Sturdy Tesco and Dunnes stores bags are most popular and are used and reused hundreds of times.Fly-tipping is a completely different problem as nobody goes to a shop fills up a bag, plastic or otherwise, and then fly-tips the contents. Fly-tipping has to do with the disposal of waste rather than the acquisition of goods e.g shopping.I have never seen anyone shopping in Ireland using a plastic bin bag to put their groceries in.People do of course buy plastic bin bags to put their waste in but most people use sturdy wheelie bins which do not require the use of bin bags as they are simnply tipped into the collection truck and compressed.The fly-tipping problem has come about because Irish Councils, unlike UK Councils, now charge for collection and disposdal of domestic waste. There is no Council Tax  nor Community Charge nor Domestic Rates in Ireland so Councils charge for certain services such a waste collection. These charges vary according to the amount of waste and the size of wheelie bins.People can have their waste collected by the local Council or by a private contractor upon payment of an annual charge or by purchasing a sticker which is then put on the bin.One can also deliver one's own waste to either a council or private contractor waste or recycling centre. There is no doubt that many people try to avoid paying for waste collection and resort to fly-tipping. That is a serious problem but it has not been created by the levy on plastic bags.

David Giles ● 6784d

Yes, Irish people say they take their own bags when in Ireland and its easy.Not only have the Chinese banned the import of household carrier bags and black sack material and film but they have banned plastic carrier bags there.  The largest factory making them is closing.Asda will be taking their carrier bags away from the tills in June I hear.  You will have to ask for them.

Philippa Bond ● 6783d

Waitrose had a trial of having one check-out where no bags were available - it was not a success so they discontinued it. It was always the emptiest check out so people would go and unload their stuff and then be told it was a "no bag" check-out - must have caused them a lot of extra work.

S. D. Brock ● 6783d