Life in Ireland

I watched Newsnight earlier. The brits are complaining about plastic bags, what to do with them, how to live without them, should they tax them; as if solving the plastic bag problem will make the world all right.

Get a grip. There are few countries left in Europe that hand out limitless free plastic bags to their customers - get used to it and stop complaining - find something decent to complain about, something worthwhile.

Is it really so hard to know when you are going to the supermarket? Do you just drop in and spend all that money on food on a whim at any time? Is organising plastic bags - re-usable, before hand just too much?

Tax on plastic bags was introduced in Ireland several years ago. I used to have hundreds of these ubiquitous bags lying around, stuffed in kitchen cupboards, under the sink, there was often a plastic bag filled with tens of other plastic bags as I did not want to throw them out - it just seemed like too much of a waste - and hey, you never knew when a bag would be needed, that was crap thinking.

Since the tax on bags I, with the majority of others, take my re-usuable bags from the house. I usually have a couple of them in the boot of the car - just in case. It has not been a traumatic transition. It was fairly easy, the government wanted my money for something that the supermarkets paid for and I had a choice. I made my choice - sometimes that’s the way life it is.

So far this year I have paid for perhaps three plastic bags - I would often have finished everyday of the week with that amount of bags, from buying little things, never mind the five or ten that would accompany me home from the supermarket after every visit. Now I just carry the bread I buy on the way home in my hand - I have made a magically discovery - the bread does not need to go into another plastic bag for 10 or 15 minutes to get home - it’s in a bag already, and for all these years I used another one that went into my personal plastic bag collection for a rainy day.

Share with: