Why dont supermarkets in the uk give out carriers bags that will bio-degrade in a couple of months?

Question

Why dont supermarkets in the uk give out carriers bags that will bio-degrade in a couple of months?

Answer 1

Wrong solution! Biodegradable carrier bags go into  landfill and do not degrade as planned. They would biodegrade OK if we left them exposed to sun and air. When landfilled they take many decades to degrade, but worse, while degrading they emit methane, a result of anaerobic decomposition.

Better by far to use bags that we repeatedly use for a few years, sturdy cloth bags even.

Answer 2

In talks at the mo to see what their policy is going to be. Have had one of the five promise to make people pay for plastic bags within three months. Its a start, esp if the others follow.

by the way EVERYTHING is biodegradable

Answer 3

- They proberbly have millions of plastic bags in their warehouses to get rid off.

- They are not forced to by law.

- It would be really expensive for them to do.

Answer 4

Cos it would cost an absolute fortune.

Answer 5

Why don't people stop using carrier bags and use jute or cloth bags???

The Co-Op are the only UK supermarket chain to be endorsed by the BUAV and they are also the only chain to use degradable bags.

Answer 6

cost i should think

Answer 7

Back in 1981/2, I went to New Zealand for the first time, and was amazed to see shops providing carrier bags for customers.

Back in good old Blighty everyone was still buying their shopping bags from shops - they took them with them to go shopping, unloaded them and put them in a cupboard till the next shopping trip.

Nothing difficult about it at all.

I must admit that I find the supermarket bags useful for cat litter and lining my pedal bin!

Answer 8

it would be worthwhile once all out non recyclable waste goes through a biodigester instead of going to landfill. for now it makes no difference, as previous answers have said.

i love my coop bags, i have the really heavy duty jute one for tins and bottles, and a light cotton one that scrunches up in pocket and goes everywhere with me for impulse buys. however i still 'gain' a couple of plastic ones a week, and they get used for rubbish. we have an energy from waste plant so its only the same as burning that oil the bag was made of in an oil fired plant.

Answer 9

The second answer is correct. Unless you are going to compost the biodegradable bags in your backyard, degradable vs non-degradable is really a moot point. Re-usable natural fiber bags are probably the best solution.

Answer 10

We should really use paper or hessian bags, anything rather than plastic.

Simple solution to another problem is to go back in time, and have deposits on glass bottles, take them back, get your money back and the company then cleans and re uses them - simple.

But supermarkets are the worlds worst, I refuse to shop in them, I go to the nearest village centre (Bitterne, Southampton) and shop there with my kids, all the store owners now know me and my girls and we have a really nice time shopping, chatting and having lunch. The people are nicer, the food is local and fresher and in most cases cheaper. Supermarkets are our own invention of laziness and convenience, we have become lazy for TV dinners and processed rubbish, I only discovered how bad things were when I became ill because of my supermarket diet, now I feel 100 times healthier and much more alive.

Supermarket flowers are a good example, taken over vast tracts of land in Kenya, divert the water course and grow lot of cheap flowers for all the people back home, and we can all look at them and not worry about the villages who now have no water and who's crops are failng, people are dying for your cheap flowers from supermarkets. I buy from Interflora, my local store, in Bitterne Southampton, only use flowers grown in the UK unless it is an indigenous species to the country of origin, and then they have very very few. So people the chioce is yours, carry on being lazy, after all its not like you are getting your water cut off or your food cupboard empty is it?  or stop talking about how bad things are, get up off your backsdes and do something about it,if I can do it anybody can.

Answer 11

Plastic bags (in general)  aren't bio-degradable they do degrade but leech harmful toxins into the soil.

Plus there are massive amount of emissions created when they are made, transported and then dumped.

I agree 100% with those who say to use a re-usable cloth bag. Re-using can sometimes be a better option than recycling as it reduces the amount of waste and processing needed.

Better still make your own cloth bag:

http://www.biggreenswitch.co.uk/node/112...

Bright Blessings

FYI,  POIROMANIC, not EVERYTHING is BIOdegradable.

Yes most stuff is degradeable, meaning it is susceptible to chemical breakdown BUT biodegradable means it's capable of decaying through the action of living organisms for example by bacteria.

There is a plastic that is classed as 'biodegradable'.

The addition to Polyethylene of certain organo-transition metal complexes will catalyse the auto-oxidation of Polyethylene.

In it's unoxidised state, Polyethylene is not capable of being assimilated by the soil microorganisms. ( NOT biodegradable)

However, the oxidation process results in a drastic reaction in molecular weight and introduction into the polymer chain of carboxylic acid functional groups.

This basically means that due to the photodegradation catalyst being added the PE 'evolves' in to natural matter,  significantly carboxylic acid and ester groups of the polymer chain, through exposure from heat and light. This rapidly reduces the strength of unstabilised Polyethylene articles. (Only if left out in heat and light not buried under tonnes of c**p at the land fill)

Carboxylic acid is a weak organic acid and polymer groups, although commonly associated with plastics also include a wide variety of organic substances such as amber and biopolymers such as proteins like hair and skin.

However I do not believe that this eradicates the plastic articles completely and so still leeches these unnatural substances into the soil and chemicals into the air while degrading and being produced, so do not feel this is a worth while alternative to ordinary plastic bags nor is it a substitute for naturally eco products.