Ministers urged to learn from success of single-use bag fee, amid criticism that other measures have been delayed

Environmental campaigners have called on the government to learn from its own successes after official figures showed the use of single-use supermarket plastic bags had fallen 98% since retailers in England began charging for them in 2015.

Annual distribution of plastic carrier bags by seven leading grocery chains plummeted from 7.6bn in 2014 to 133m last year, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said on Monday.

  • BlackmistEnglish
    51·
    11 months ago

    When the petrol car ban comes in, this could take care of itself as everybody finds themselves priced out of driving.

    We’ll need a really good public transport system to replace it, but we won’t get that either because we’re too poor to care about.

    • mondoman712@lemmy.mlEnglish
      61·
      11 months ago

      A lot of people are already priced out of driving. We need to be building that public transport network, along with active transport infrastructure and better land use anyway.

      • BlackmistEnglish
        2·
        11 months ago

        With petrol you can always get a £500 banger, run it into the ground over the next year or two and repeat.

        With electric it starts at about 5000-6000, and you’ll be paying £500 a year just to rent the battery. It’s the batteries that are going to keep that out of reach of the poorest.

        • mondoman712@lemmy.mlEnglish
          3·
          11 months ago

          And you still need insurance, fuel etc on top of that, and your £500 banger isn’t going to be very reliable.

          You can get a decent bike for £50 or a bus ticket for £2. The problem is in a lot of the country it isn’t safe to cycle and the buses are shit, so we need to fix those things to have transport that works for everyone (and doesn’t create microplastics).

        • ChromeSkull@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          11 months ago

          Where are you getting this battery rental from? I only knew of Renault and the very first Nissan leafs that did battery lease.

        • MidgePhoto@photog.social
          1·
          11 months ago

          @Blackmist @mondoman712
          I only know of Renault leasing the battery in the Zoe.

          Otherwise, the battery is part of the car and sold as part of it, with a guarantee.

          I think your £500 banger has to be years older than any large number of BEVs, and will cost you more to scrap after you ture of repairing it.

    • MidgePhoto@photog.social
      1·
      11 months ago

      @Blackmist @mondoman712
      It isn’t a ban, there are huge numbers of them, of which less than a tenth are new any year.

      That tenth of new car buyers can keep last year’s car, or buy a second hand car, but these are new car buyers, they’ll buy a new EV, mostly, or their firm will.

      2,3,4…10 owners down the line, look forward to a used EV coming your way, a couple…10 years after no new petrol cars are made.