27th April 2007

You report that the newly launched limited edition 'Anya Hindmarch' designer bags were sold out within 10 minutes at Sainsbury's in Stroud (27/04/07). The bag has a great logo with an important message: 'I'm not a plastic bag'. Sadly  it is made from pesticide-sprayed, fertiliser-grown, intensively-irrigated Indian cotton: a crop which is causing untold damage to ecosytems and the Indian people alike.

There are many sustainable alternatives to both plastic and this cotton. We don't need this 'greenwash' from Sainsbury's. Apparently one customer even had his new Hindmarch bag put inside a plastic bag! It is time instead we had real action in this country to cut our plastic use and end the disposal costs of some eight billion bags a year.

Buried plastic bags can take up to 1,000 years to decompose while a whale washed up off the coast of France had 800 kilos of plastic bags in its stomach!

San Francisco has just banned all non-recyclable plastic bags at major supermarkets and pharmacies. Similar bans are in place in South Africa, Taiwan, Bangladesh and Paris. In this country many including the Green party and some local authorities want to see a tax on plastic bags. When the Irish did this they reduced their use by 95%!  A MORI survey in this country shows 63% support a tax. Let's do it.

Cllr Philip Booth