The ‘carrier bag levy’ – a policy proposal originally drawn up by the Lib Dem and Conservative Coalition Government – will bring shops in England in line with those in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, in having to charge for the use of individual carrier bags.
But, the regulations in England, unlike in the devolved nations, include a series of exemptions which allow shops to continue issuing free paper bags, for example, and not to charge at all if they employ less than 250 people nationwide.
The government had also intended to include an exemption for biodegradable plastic bags from the charge – despite not being able to identify a suitable biodegradable bag to which the exemption could be applied.
Defra had opted to delay the exemption for carrier bags, whilst a review of existing industry standards for the biodegradability of lightweight plastic material takes place.
Biodegradable
This included work by a technical advisory group to assess national and international industry standards and tests for biodegradability of plastics and their appropriateness to be used for an exemption.
Results from this were due to be published before Monday, although a spokesman for Defra told letsrecycle.com today (October 2) that publication of the results will happen ‘in due course’.
Sources within the industry have suggested that the review may recommend scrapping the biodegradable exemption altogether, but this has not been confirmed officially.
Should the exemption be scrapped this would be welcome news for the plastics recycling sector. Many recyclers have argued that allowing significant volumes of biodegradable plastics to be distributed would undermine plastic film recycling due to the difficulty in separating biodegradable and non-biodegradable bags, and the structural differences of the polymers.
Others have argued that allowing retailers to give them away for free would provide a conflicting message to consumers over waste reduction.
BRC
With retailers gearing up for the introduction of the bag charge on Monday, Alice Ellison, environment policy adviser at the British Retail Consortium (BRC) told letsrecycle.com that the organisation would support moves to scrap the exemption for biodegradable bags and to bring the regulations more closely in line with those in place around the UK.
She said: “We have always maintained that there should not be an exemption for biodegradable bags and will continue that.
“Biodegradable bags should not act as a substitute for other bags because that is a conflict in the reuse message. If there is suddenly a new bag available it is sending a confusing message.”
Mrs Ellison added that retailers would like to see the charges applied across the board to provide a level playing field for businesses.
“We have always argued that the charge should apply to all retailers and all bags, but perhaps only the reporting requirements could apply to large retailers. Small retailers would like to be included to reduce their bag usage as well.”
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