There seems to be in the media a lot of concern towards plastic bags and the effect plastic bags have on the environment.

Alistair Darling in his 2008 budget has introduced a proposed charge on plastic bags in all supermarkets, the Daily Mail and even our own Harrogate Advertiser have started campaigns to get rid of plastic bags for good.

If climate change is such a big issue to these people why are they working so hard to get rid of something which causes possibly the least amount of damage to the environment?

The Advertiser claims in the article 'Doing our bit on plastic-bag plague' that "This is truly one issue where a small personal sacrifice can make a major impact."

I can only come to the conclusion with the lack of statistical evidence in the article that they are unsure of the main impact of plastic bags.
Most of the stories I have seen on plastic bag charges and abolition support the issue, but each story lacks in evidence to show what impact this would have on the environment if we abandoned plastic bags completely.

The only piece of statistical evidence which I have seen was on a Newsnight report which said, that if there was not a single plastic bag left in the country being used or produced then it would cut down on emissions in the UK by 0.04% - major impact indeed.

Of course being cynical about this topic one might argue that every little helps to the environment and that it could be a progression towards a greener society.

But we are ignoring the bigger picture. With the thousands that walk through each supermarket in the Harrogate area and the whole country it is very likely that a large majority of those customers will use cars to get to the supermarkets and get back home, popular family cars like 4x4s and estates which produce large amounts of carbon emissions which will not be reduced by getting rid of plastic bags.

There is also the amount of plastic packaging used on products which no one seems to be even mentioning.

The plastic on most packages is not re-useable and there are thousands upon thousands of plastic packaging on products up and down the country, at least plastic shopping bags are re-useable and a lot of the big supermarkets use recycled materials to make the bags anyway.

This issue I feel is an extremely negative one towards helping improve the environment and reducing emissions.

The people who choose to keep using plastic bags are then going to reward supermarkets with more money, then the people who stick religiously to using other sources to carry their shopping will then be misleaded into thinking they are making a bigger impact on the planet than they actually are.

I'm not a cynic of Global Warming but I personally believe that its extreme drastic measures that will help save the planet not gimmicks like this, cutting down the rainforest, fuel emissions from power stations and carbon emissions from planes and cars are just some of the big problems that effect our planet.

I personally think that the issue of plastic bags is irrelevant and if people really want to make an impact and cut down on their carbon footprint then they should do something more drastic.