Plastic bags - letter to Oxford Mail

2.22.30pm BST (GMT +0100) Fri 9th Jun 2006

I welcome Ikea's announcement this week that they will start regularly charging customers 5p a time for plastic bags to try to tackle waste and environmental damage. Generally, supermarkets and other shops seem to produce vastly excessive packaging and much is not recyclable. Over 17.5 billion plastic bags are given out by supermarkets in Britain each year, and that's enough plastic to cover the whole of England in 20 years.

Oxfordshire Councils, like all other local authorities, will soon have to start meeting very strict limits on the amount of waste we can send to landfill. We must reduce non-recycled waste much further than the 33% we already recycle in Oxfordshire, and I welcome any attempt by companies to reduce the amount of packaging they give us.

The Government were bringing in regulations to reduce the amount of packaging used by the retail trade but they appear to have stalled. In April I persuaded the County Council to ask the Government to move more quickly on this, and I hope that Ikea's move will further encourage them. Well done, Ikea!

Yours faithfully

Cllr Bob Johnston

Liberal Democrat Councillor, Kennington & Radley