Plastic bag usage plummets since the introduction of the 5p charge

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Permalink Reply by Old-Age-Emporium(OAE) on July 30, 2016 at 12:51

"England invents Brexit school for slow learners" www.bbc.co.uk/news/ancient-history/

Michael, what I can't understand is why BBC and everyone else are lauding this as an unheard of bold new step in human evolution. Admittedly some reports do add a throwaway mention that this great advance had already happened quite some time ago in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. What none of the reports seem to have noticed is that precisely this same revolution with equally good results had already occurred 14 years earlier in the Republic of Ireland, Bangladesh, Singapore and other similarly backward countries. The Irish plastic shopping bag charge of 15cents (about 10p then) was introduced in March 2002. Within 5 months, by 20 August 2002, the reduction in plastic bag use was 1 billion bags or 90%. Why don't BBC News folk read their own archives?    

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