PLASTIC TAX

A tax on plastic bags has been hailed a big success. After supermarkets in Wales reported a massive 90% drop in the use of plastic bags when a levy of 5p was introduced.

From next year shoppers in Northern Ireland will have to pay 5p for a plastic bag rising to 10p in 2014. Scotland is considering a similar plan and government ministers are also considering adopting a charge throughout England after a voluntary initiative failed to deliver anticipated reductions. There is enormous support from groups including the Marine Conservation Society and The National Trust.

Plastic bags take up to 1,000 years to rot away. Causing devastation to marine animals and birds, who can suffer long painful deaths after ingesting plastic particles or become tangled-up in plastic litter.

With the World’s oceans becoming increasingly littered with plastic waste is it time to consider a levy on other plastic goods? How about plastic drinking bottles? Only 5% of plastics are currently recycled, it is an ever increasing environmental problem.

Eight percent of the Worlds oil production is used to make plastics. It takes approximately 50ml of crude oil to make each polyester based sports shirt.

It would be a very brave decision to impose a levy on sport related plastic products to help finance a cleaning up of our oceans, with the current obesity epidemic.

On the eve of the London 2012 Olympics should we all be starting to think of alternatives to running, jumping, skipping around in polyester shirts and then using plastic drink bottles to replenish ourselves?
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