Bag levy triggers fall in NI plastic bag use

Northern Ireland’s Department of the Environment (DoE) has announced that its plastic bag levy has led to a ‘significant reduction’ in the number of single-use carrier bags dispensed in the country.

DoE estimates that around 300 million carrier bags were issued in Northern Ireland last year. However, new provisional figures released by DoE for the first quarter of 2013-14 suggest that between the introduction of the levy (8 April 2013) and 30 June, 17.5 million single-use carrier bags were given out by retailers. For some supermarkets, DoE states that this could represent an annual reduction of over 80 per cent.

Mark H. Durkan, Environment Minister for Northern Ireland, said: “This is great news for the environment. Our streets and hedgerows, our fields and parks should no longer be places strewn with discarded bags. In many ways the public are ahead of government here, showing a great appetite for this legislation to be introduced.

“I commend people for their responsible attitude and willingness to come on board. They are making a personal contribution to addressing the threat of climate change and environmental damage. I very much urge them to keep up the momentum – keep reusing bags."

Under the Single Use Carrier Bags Charge Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2013, retailers must charge at least 5p for each single use carrier back issued to customers.

However, it has been suggested by former Environment Minister Alex Attwood that the levy might be increased to 10p per bag, with the proceeds being used to ‘generate a significant amount of money to help community and voluntary organisations, businesses, schools and charities improve the environment’.

Bag levy absent from UK

DoE did, however, point out that the figures only reflected plastic bag use in a single quarter, and it was therefore ‘reluctant’ to make an annual prediction for the retail sector as a whole. It announced that it would release confirmed statistics once the levy had been in operation for an entire year (April 2014).

It also said that factors such as ‘seasonal variation’ could affect the number of plastic bags dispensed.

However, it is hoped that Northern Ireland’s levy will see similar successes to Wales’s plastic bag charge, which has seen the number of plastic bags issued to customers fall by 76 per cent.

Scotland is also set to introduce a plastic bag levy in October 2013, which it predicts will generate economic benefits of around £90 million over 15 years.

This will leave England as the only remaining member of the UK not to have a plastic bag levy in place, despite a Which? survey finding that 56 per cent of the population were in favour of one.

Read more about Northern Ireland’s plastic bag levy.