Does one give into pester power? It's a question I have pondered for a while on a few areas, such as this: London joins national campaign to banish the curse of the plastic bag
It's not quite on a par with 'giving in to terrorists or kidnappers', so I am tempted to go along and swallow the possible consequences of 'giving in to..'.
And it's not like I don't get the point. Plastic bags, if there are better alternatives (the enviROI of plastic vs. alternatives not having been clearly explained to me at all yet, much less convincingly. For example, I can't see a ship-load of hessian sacks getting shipped from India to be sold for a £1 and then forgotten about in the back of a drawer come the next outing - who can carry a bunch of these around all day in case they pop in the shops? - is going to help much either. But hey-ho) and are not being reused or recycled effectively (seems not), are certainly a landfill-destined waste of resource. I don't use 'em if I can help it, though have to admit that when I don't happen to have 4 hemp bags on my person would find it a bit of a pain not to have them, or wonder where the money I have to hand over is going to. Plus a small tilt towards those who have lost their jobs as a consequence of such a ban (and wonder who is next, until the truly worthy contributors to society who inhabit Islington and Westminster decide to feed on each other's productive career contributions).
But I am erring on just getting it over with, if only to get it out of the way and move on to hopefully more important things. Though the trivial obsessions of most involved in such campaigns don't encourage me too much. They'll need another outlet. And I doubt banning pets, skiing holidays or leg waxing products as 'unnecessary' will top their lists.
Especially as major proponents are such as newspapers and LAs, who don't seem so shy on sending out their own hordes of mailings in plastic wrappers.
Yesterday Modbury, today London, tomorrow the Isle of Wight... and then... ze verld!
Thing is, as an ad man, I wonder what will happen when attentions drift elsewhere.
The shop which has already set out its stall to get rid of packaging
Because if everyone is doing it, then there is no value in being different. You get in the Indy if you have 'a' shop that is eco-twee and all the luvvies get their free-range Priuses for the weekend there, but how about the real world of a 8pm Friday rainy-night dash to the Tesco on the way home down a Midlands motorway?
One wonders if you might see the genesis of ad campaigns with 'free plastic bags' like 'no VAT' to entice people in by way of being an exception.
And who is to define when a plastic carrying device is 'legal' or 'illegal'? Maybe we will get bag-leggers smuggling in dangerous loads of plastic over the Mexican border.
At least I get blogs and blogs out of it. Just not sure it's moving my kids' futures on as much as some other efforts deserving such energies.
2 comments:
On the subject of placcy bags, I heard a lady (on Radio 5, I think) arguing, quite strongly, that they really are quite environmentally friendly, as once from bin into landfill, there they remain, not degrading, for hundreds (or maybe thousands?) of years, locking their contained carbon away for centuries. Whereas, a paper, or indeed a Hessian or Hemp bag will, once thrown away into landfill, quite rapidly decompose back to nice things like methane and CO2.
Not a factor that I had ever thought about before, but one that certainly raised my eyebrow a tad.
Considering this ban is meant to be about enviROI, I'd like to see a lot more, and more sensible discussion around this very issue, if only to lay it to rest.
Of course a reuseable does just that, so one has to weigh many issues, so its decomposition imposition will be a one off. Which makes me wonder quite a bit about the biodegradable 'options' that are often punted out in mitigation.
I just watched a 'sofa source' chat on BBC Breakfast just now, with the bouffant, blonde, a guy from M&S and what seemed to be a Ken Livingstone clone from the London Assembly.
This latter guy was quite something, torn between the power of banning things left, right and centre and the joys of charges/fines (he really wanted as much as possible imposed everywhere).
If this is the kind of being that we have to run our futures I really do worry. Like I say, once guys like him have this dubious scalp on their nicely-salaried, well-pensioned walls, they will need to move on to another. And profile, not effect, seems to be a driving factor. With the media happy to play along.
At least the blonde muttered about not exactly having a handbag full of reuseables, but the solution - and the best I think in the circumstances - seems to be being provided with recycled material options, with the fee going to 'environmental charities'. I guess it's a reasonable form of immediate offsetting, though I do wonder exactly where that money does go. I think mini-Ken rather sees it going as a levy to help clone more of him, and that is not something I'd be very keen on.
Much was made of how it all works - and it seems it is - well overseas, and I'd like to know more about this, especially in terms of enviROI and not just the emails of gushing luvvies whose views the BBC chooses to 'share'.
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