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  PlanetArk 28 Feb 07
British Retailers to Cut Down On Plastic Bags
Story by Jeremy Lovell

LONDON - British retailers have agreed to clamp down on plastic bags as part of the battle against global warming, the Department of the Environment said on Wednesday.

The agreement involving top retailers such as Tesco, Marks & Spencer, Sainsburys and Wal-Mart's ASDA, should lead to a 25 percent cut in the envionmental impact of the bags by the end of next year.

"This is an ambitious, but very practical agreement and we are pleased that the retailers have agreed to work with us and UK consumers in such a positive way," Environment Minister Ben Bradshaw said.

Under the agreement, retailers will encourage consumers to use fewer bags and re-use those that they already have. Retailers will also switch over to recyclable carrier bags where they can. Details of the scheme were still to be worked out.

If all goes as hoped, the move should reduce emissions of the main greenhouse gas carbon dioxide by up to 58,500 tonnes a year, or the equivalent to taking 18,000 cars off the road, the department said.

"It will require the government's support in encouraging customers to re-use, recycle and take an improved approach to household waste management," said British Retail Consortium environment policy director Nigel Smith. The scheme applies to both plastic and paper carrier bags, of which some 13 million a year are used in Britain.

The announcement came as Mayor of London Ken Livingstone announced a plan to make the city the greenest in the world by cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 60 percent by 2025.

That plan is more ambitious than the draft Climate Change Bill the British government will publish on March 12 setting in law a commitment to cut national emissions of CO2 by 60 percent by 2050.

On Tuesday, at a meeting at which environmental lobby groups set political parties a series of tests on global warming, David Miliband, secretary of state for the environment, said beating climate change was not a foregone conclusion.

"I don't know if we are going to be able to crack this problem -- partly because we are already in a dangerous place." The tests were cutting British CO2 emissions by at least three percent a year and taking a global lead, making it easier for people to reduce their environmental impact, protecting the countryside, and increasing the greeness of the tax system.

Leading world scientists predict average world temperatures will rise by between 1.8 and 4.0 degrees Celsius this century due mainly to carbon gases from burning fossil fuels for power and transport.
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