Making sustainability sexy ...

In Ireland, plastic bags are out of fashion

Posted by Sarah van Schagen at 2:33 PM on 04 Feb 2008

Read more about: Ireland | waste | green living

By making the unsustainable alternative a faux pas ...

In 2002, Ireland passed a tax on plastic bags; customers who want them must now pay 33 cents per bag at the register. There was an advertising awareness campaign. And then something happened that was bigger than the sum of these parts.

Within weeks, plastic bag use dropped 94 percent. Within a year, nearly everyone had bought reusable cloth bags, keeping them in offices and in the backs of cars. Plastic bags were not outlawed, but carrying them became socially unacceptable -- on a par with wearing a fur coat or not cleaning up after one's dog. [emph. mine, obvi.]

For story: Making sustainability sexy ...
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Taxes delete barriers to community values.

Faux pas or not the unsustainable alternative is not a choice most choose gleefully. On the contrary if it is thought of at all it often can come down to a decision on price, time, convenience, and social class understanding. The tax on plastic bags shows a condemnation of people who choose unsustainable alternatives when the choices affect time and convenience but not price barriers. It must seem anti-community, something people are desperate to create when possible in this capitalist free for all.

Who would think that taxing bad things would stop people from using them? Obviously this tactic works. That is precisely why it is off the table for the federal and state governments in the US. Business leaders start crying about how the profit rate for their bad products would halt if customers stopped buying them. The government passes them a tissue and then berates environmentalists for being too mean to the fat cats who need to continuously make more money.

I use cloth bags or my backpack. I notice that they give me a nickel off at the grocery store for doing this and smile at me. I smile back. I remember working as a cashier and rooting secretly for the people who would come in with the massive amounts of coupons. I'd tear off their receipt and look at it and tell them how much they saved!

No-one wants people to have to choose poor food products because of price issues, yet most poor people are forced to. No-one wants people to choose poor energy efficiency because of the lack of money to upgrade their heating equipment. But people don't look down on people when the problem is price. The minute that barrier to choice disappears community pressure begins to form.

Taxes on polluting and inefficient products almost always makes sense. It drives product innovation and competition in the right direction. It also can alter poor social patterns for better healthier ones. High taxes also expose rich people to social criticism, something that they routinely avoid.

The Black Car Project Killing cars before they kill us!

by wildleaf at 3:48 PM on 04 Feb 2008

Go maith thu!

Beannacht leat, a hEirann!

by Bregalad at 6:59 PM on 04 Feb 2008

Any recent figures?

I think this kind of tax is important to shift people away from unsustainable lazy convenience. In recent months I read some contrarian claim that within a year or two Irish shoppers had drifted back to using lots of plastic bags and were just coughing up the cash. Does anyone know if that is at all true? It would certainly emphasize the need to steadily increase any carbon tax so people don't get complacent.

by katakanadian at 9:15 PM on 04 Feb 2008

A nickel off

Each time you use a reusable shopping bag, the store sells them (made from recycled plastic), in a local store here, they deduct 5 cents from your total. Pretty sexy! hehey.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

by amazingdrx at 9:50 PM on 04 Feb 2008

my test.

I did a personal test, I went to ten different large food stores and nicely asked them not to give me plastic bags, and showed my own canvas bags, all ten checkers, looked at me funny and thougth I was trying to be difficult. Even the bagers were like "OMG, Why don't you want plastic bag".

Most people I know do not recycle, - or atleats not in utah! Most people are so busy in their own little bubble to really care about whats going on with the world!

Companies put tiny little symboles and message like "recycle" on their packaging, but most people don't.

oh and heres the really kicker! - most people I see have children, yet they make very little effort to recycle. I do not have a child yet, and I seem to care more about the next generations. - sad!

I only have this one life, so I am going to try my very best to make a positive change. --- The Happy & Healthy Vegan ---

by javaearth at 7:39 AM on 05 Feb 2008

Still a great idea (if I do say so myself)

For some years, whenever I speak to an elected type, I offer this suggestion:

We need a law/statute/ordinance (depending on the level of politician I'm speaking with) that says that retailers must post a warning on the shelf next to the shelf tag whenever a product bearing a recycle logo is not able to be recycled at that store or through a community recycling program (whether public or private) in that community where the store is.

That's it -- no mandate, just a bit of counter-marketing. The recycle logo is so debased that it's absolutely worthless and adorns billions of products that could only be recycled in a lab on Pluto.

If you care about solid waste at all (or the energy that nonrecyclable packaging represents, or the threat to biodiversity that the flow of raw materials creates), adopt this meme: anyone selling not-actually-recyclable product with a recyclable logo has committed a little bit of consumer fraud.

People deserve a warning when the recycling logo is bunk.

The 5% Project

by JMG at 6:34 AM on 06 Feb 2008

ADVERTISING POLICY

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