28th
February 2007
McNeil Backs Liberals’ Carrier Bag
U-Turn
MSP for Greenock and Inverclyde, Duncan
McNeil, has welcomed today’s news that retailers have agreed to reduce the
overall impact of their carrier bags by 25% by the end of next year.
The
move was announced by Environment Minister, Ross Finnie, and spells the end of
his Lib Dem colleagues’ bid, led by Mike Pringle MSP, to hike up weekly
shopping bills with a tax on every single plastic bag.
Mr
McNeil said:
“I
am delighted that common sense has prevailed and that Ross Finnie has scrapped
his Liberals colleagues’ bid to impose an extra tax on every single plastic
bag. That would have hit the
poorest hardest, needlessly hiking up weekly shopping bills.
“Along
with staff at Greenock’s bpi.packaging services, I campaigned against this
unfair piece of posturing. It
deserved to be consigned to, if not the political scrap heap, certainly the
recycling centre.”
Today’s
announcement came as a result of a joint initiative involving representatives
from all areas of the retail sector and in response to a concerted call for
action from Environment ministers in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and
Wales.
They
have agreed to support the campaign together with the British Retail Consortium
(BRC) and WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme) which manages waste
prevention programmes for the four governments.
The
agreement gives flexibility to allow individual retailers to respond to the
agreement in ways that are best suited to their customers and type of trading,
and recognises that a number are already addressing this issue through a variety
of approaches.
Retailers
will be reducing the environmental impact of bags by:
Encouraging
customers to reduce significantly the number of carrier bags they use
Reducing
the impact of each carrier bag (e.g. by using less plastic or incorporating
recycled content
Enabling
the recycling of more carrier bags where appropriate
There
will also be further work to encourage carrier bag re-use.
Each signatory is now working with WRAP to identify a baseline figure against which the reduction in environmental impact can be measured and reported. Progress will be monitored jointly by the retailer signatories, government and WRAP and a review will be completed before the end of 2008 to see what would be required to make further reductions by 2010.
ENDS
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