Archive for 24 October 2007

Top tips and plastic bags

George Marshall of COIN wrote a provocative piece about whether re-using plastic bags and other small actions are helpful when it comes to doing something meaningful about climate change.

See Guardian and his blog.

Now he is right to point out that re-using bags has a very small effect on overall carbon use. He acknowledges that there may be other benefits – a few turtles won’t die as a result of confusing plastic bags in the sea for jellyfish.

So can we consign the idea of re-using bags and similar “simple tips” to the recycling bin? And chastise the Government and anyone else who promote them for diverting us from the serious business of responding effectively to climate change.

Or is there more to it? Several bloggers have pointed out that by encouraging people to start with simple actions you may them to move on to more demanding ones once they’ve realised what’s at stake and have a better understanding of what’s actually required.

What strikes me about plastic bags is that when we re-use bags today, it’s the big supermarket chains that make most the savings. We do the work, and the supermarkets reap the benefit. So there’s an imbalance there. Especially if you know that £100m or so is spent each year on these bags.

So my version of re-using bags is to have local communities strike a bargain with supermarkets. If the community re-uses bags, then the community gets some of the money that’s saved. For example, if students in a school pester their parents to re-use bags and the school gets funding for energy efficiency measures or renewable energy technologies etc. If you can save 20% of bag use, then this could be £20m a year!

But there’s more. One great advantage is that people immediately see the point; you take resources – the bags - that would literally go in a hole in the ground and turn them in to something useful – renewable energy installations or whatever. This is a very powerful message about how we confront climate change – we have to use resources much more efficiently. Only that way we have a high standard of living but with lower carbon use.

And more …. If we had a branded “Green Bag” then this would be advertising for the campaign on every high street in the country. The campaign snowballs.

Climate Change: the citizen’s agenda - report

We went to a meeting organised by PRASEG (the Parliamentary Renewable and Sustainable Energy Group) on the recent report by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee of the House of Commons Climate Change: the “citizen’s agenda”. Michael Jack, Chair of the Committee, outlined the report and its conclusions.

It’s a great report. It summarises a lot of useful information – such as the breakdown of emissions by UK household. On average each household emitted 20.7 tonnes of CO₂ in 2001. Over half of this comes from private cars, direct fuel and electricity use in the home, and aviation and public transport.

It also sets out what more the Government – and Citizens could be doing - from home energy efficiency, (smart metering, low energy lightbulbs, and insulation) to microgeneration and personal carbon allowances.

Do have a look at the report and see what could be done (and what is being done in countries like Germany). Plenty of food for thought for people interested in the Big Green Challenge.