Budget 2008's plastic bag policy

It seems that the government obviously note plastic bags as a serious waste of global resources since plans included in the recently published Budget for 2008.

Alistair Darling said when delievering the budget:

"Given the damage that single-use carrier bags inflict on the environment, we want to be able to take action. We will introduce legislation to impose a charge on them if we have not seen sufficient progress on a voluntary basis.

"Legislation would come into force in 2009 and based on other countries' experience, it could lead to a 90 per cent reduction, with around 12 billion fewer plastic bags in circulation. The money raised should go to environmental charities."

It seems that the responsibility still lies with the supermarkets and other shops, very few of which have done anything up til now about. It seems that enforced reduction of single use plastic bags is the only way to solve the problem, as we have a stunning example of in Ireland.

Lets hope that these and the other fairly meager enviromental promises made in the Budget are actually carried out.