Plastic bag revolt spreads across Britain

Yet an awful lot remain. Estimates vary wildly when it comes to mankind's propensity for the ultimate in convenience shopping. Environmental groups guesstimate that up to 1 trillion plastic bags are used worldwide each year.

In Britain the figure is 8 billion – 134 per person. Some will be reused or employed as wastebasket liners. But billions end up back in the environment, fluttering from trees and hedges in China, disrupting the digestion of Indian cows, scudding along the ocean floor, and suffocating an estimated 100,000 birds, whales, seals, and turtles each year.

Reduced CO2 emissions

And there is a climate-change dimension as well: Plastic bags are manufactured using oil. Cutting usage in Britain by a quarter would reduce CO2 emissions by as much as 63 tons a year – equivalent to taking 18,000 cars off the road, the government says.

Some countries have taken decisive action against the plastic bag. Bangladesh and Taiwan have banned them. Ireland took a much-lauded step of imposing a tax (€0.15 per bag) in 2002, leading to usage reduction of up to 95 percent. Next month, California will become the first US state to force supermarkets to provide recycling bins.

But so far, despite the growing public clamor in Britain, the government is showing no signs of introducing a ban or a tax. It prefers encouraging retailers to sign up to waste recycling commitments.

The latest arrangement, agreed in February, commits big stores to reducing the environmental impact of their shopping bags by 25 percent by the end of next year. Government minister Ben Bradshaw called it an "ambitious" agreement and noted that consumers had become "increasingly aware that they can make positive choices to help the environment in the way they shop."

But Hannah Chance, spokeswoman for Sainsbury, a big supermarket chain, says a total ban is unlikely at the moment. Sainsbury has tried bag-free days and promoting its reusable "bag for life."

But Ms. Chance says "it would be too radical to completely remove them. The plastic bag does have a functional purpose in life. In cities a lot of people don't have a car. Lots of people use it as a [trash] bag at the end of the day. It's giving customers things that are practical." She said they did try out biodegradable bags, but they weren't strong enough.

Harvey says that Gordon Brown, poised to take over as prime minister next week, once declared that governments "respond to the climate that people create." In other words, as one wag once put it, in order to lead people in Britain, first find out where they're going and then walk in front of them.

But it remains to be seen if enough people will move in this direction.

Anecdotal evidence would appear to show that those who bring their own bags to supermarkets with them are still in a minority.

Campaigners say they hope that by Christmas it will be "as fashionable to carry plastic as it is to wear fur," but privately admit that they may have a much longer wait.

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