Register / Login
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
"Landfill space is limited and will eventually run out if we continue to increase the amount of rubbish we produce. Although there are alternative ways of disposing of rubbish, the best option is to produce less in the first place."
ENVIRONMENT AGENCY STATEMENT

Plastic bags are one of the things you can cut down on right away. Get yourself a Million bags 4 life. These are stronger than plastic carriers so you can get more in them, and they'll last for a long time. If you have a family to buy for, get a few bags

So please buy yourself a piece of environmental history, and promote your company as someone who cares about the climate we live in with a direct distribution of 1 million with publicity across the UK.

Statistics
  • UK consumers use an estimated 10 billion plastic bags a year - that's 290 per person
  • 80% of UK consumers currently re-use their plastic bags at least once for a variety of purposes - such as bin liners, nappy sacks or lunch bags
  • It costs supermarkets around half a penny to produce 1 typical plastic bag
  • UK retailers spend £64-£80 million per year on providing plastic bags to their customers
  • Plastic bags account for approximately:
    • 1% of visible litter in the UK 4
    • 2% of total litter on UK beaches
    • 0.3% of the domestic waste stream 6
    • 3.5 - 5.3% of total plastic packaging used in the UK
Sources

  1. Waste Resources Action Programme (WRAP) consultant?s report, 2005
  2. 'Carrier bag usage and attitudes' - March 2005 survey commissioned by WRAP
  3. Information supplied to Scottish Parliament by the Carrier Bag Consortium
  4. INCPEN (Industry Council for Packaging and the Environment) visible litter study 2004
  5. Marine Conservation Society (MCS) annual beach litter survey 2004
  6. HM Treasury's Plastic Bags Tax Assessment in December 2002
  7. WRAP estimate
Links supporting the Bag 4 Life concept
  1. http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/wed/campaign/pledges/Bag/?version=1
  2. http://www.recyclenow.com/what_more_can_i_do/reducing_your_rubbish/its_in_the_bag.html
  3. http://www.wrap.org.uk/
  4. http://www.wrap.org.uk/retail/news_events/news/move_by_tesco_to.html
  5. http://www.wrap.org.uk/retail/news_events/news/choose_to.html
  6. http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/localenv/plasticbags/index.htm#reuse
  7. http://www.defra.gov.uk/ENVIRONMENT/WASTE/topics/plastics.htm
  8. http://www.incpen.org/pages/userdata/incp/PCBFS.pdf
Look at the difference we can make:
  • If everyone in the UK stopped using plastic bags and switched to a reusable bag, we'd save 7.8 billion plastic bags - that's enough plastic to tie around the earth 103 times.
  • If everyone in the UK shared their daily car trip to work - in a year we would save 3 billion litres of petrol, worth £2.8 billion, we'd save ourselves 24 billion miles of driving and stop the release of 6 million tonnes of CO2. In fact if we all shared a car trip to work, it would be like planting 5.4 million trees - that's a big breath of fresh air!
  • If everyone in the UK simply turned the tap off while they brushed their teeth they would save 76 billion litres of water, every year. That's 31,500 Olympic sized swimming pools - enough drinking water for one third of the population of Ethiopia every year.
  • If everyone in the UK volunteered to do an environmental project for one day - we'd spend 420 million hours improving our environment. That's the same amount of energy it took to build the Great Pyramid of Giza!
  • If every family in the UK hung out just one load of washing once a week we would save 300 million loads of tumble drying, prevent 515,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions, and save ourselves a whopping £88 million in electricity bills every year.
  • If everyone in the UK swapped a daily bath for a shower we could save a 203 billion litres of water - enough to fill up Lake Windermere. In fact for every bath we take - up to three people could have a shower!
  • If everyone in the UK stopped filling the kettle to the top every time they made a cuppa - we would save enough electricity in one year to run more than three quarters of the street lighting in the country.
  • If everyone in the UK put a hippo or similar water saving device in their toilet cistern, we would save 91 billion litres of water every year - that's enough water for the Okavango Delta's real life hippos to happily splash around in!
  • If everyone in the UK started using rechargeable batteries we would stop 20,000- 30,000 tonnes of batteries being thrown away ever year - enough to build more than 3 Eiffel Towers.
  • If everyone in the UK gave a few pound or pence to a climate payback scheme each time they took a flight it would be like planting millions of trees. If all 16.9 million UK people who take short haul flights every year around the UK and Europe gave a small contribution to offset the 2.8 million tonnes of CO2 emissions created - we could plant a new Sherwood Forest every two years