The plastics bag industry has welcomed the findings of an independent report examining the possibility of introducing a carrier bag tax in Scotland similar to that already in place in Eire.
The Carrier Bag Consortium (CBC) says the Scottish Executive commissioned report concludes that a tax as proposed in MSP Mike Pringle’s Private Member’s Bill would have no major environmental benefits, could cost up to 700 jobs, would lead to an extra 5,400 tonnes of waste going to landfill and could increase atmospheric acidification.
Barry Turner, UK Carrier Bag Consortium chairman, says: “In the face of emotive misinformation and political spin describing plastic bags as ‘a menace’, the Scottish Executive’s experts have reached many robust conclusions which effectively dismantle the environmental myths a plastic bag tax would have on Scotland and its people. However we have serious reservations about some assumptions. For example the report bases its impact calculation on the belief that around 30% of shoppers won’t use any carrier bags. This is clearly unrealistic and has the effect of seriously diluting the negative impacts.”
The CBC says many of the findings in the AEA Technology report echo global research undertaken by the Packaging and Industrial Films Association in 2002 when a tax was introduced in the Irish Republic, but “abandoned” by Westminster.