The opening…
25 Oct 2019
Dear LPG,
Do you remember all that fuss about how shopping bags, the predominantly plastic ones you get from the supermarkets, were destroying our environment? It has now been law that we have to pay for our bags since October 5th 2015 and while I note the fact that there are now more bags returning to shops to be used again, I have to take note that everything that the government do to improve any other aspect of life also manages to improve the amount of revenue they manage to collect for themselves. Though in my experience in many shops it already has happened, it looks like the Government will officially have an extra pocket of money coming their way when the cost of the bags formally rises again from 5p to 10p. Of course this has improved the public’s awareness of what we do with the bags and the shops now get the advertising advantages because they make less of them in the secure knowledge that the public will be exhibiting the adverts that they display at least twice. Perhaps more importantly, the latest proposals will effect a 100% improvement in the money they collect from the venture.
But during that relatively short period of just three years, have you, or the government, noticed the significant rise in another kind of wrapping. The nation has fallen in love with online shopping with the result that there is a significant rise in the number of cardboard boxes and reinforced envelopes that are discarded after just one online shop delivery outing?
These are not easily able to be reused by the people who receive their online shopping in them because they are made to fit the particular objects that are delivered. I suppose they are more recyclable than the plastic, but now that I am having more stuff delivered in this way, I am sure that I am not the only one who finds getting rid of the packaging from online shopping a bit of a challenge.
I am wondering if the government have found an official way of creating an extra stream of revenue from them yet although perhaps I should not be giving them any new ideas…
LS, Beckenham
