When the Daily Mail puts an environmental campaign on its front page, you know the tide is turning.
Turn the tide on plastic bags
When the Daily Mail puts an environmental campaign on its front page, you know the tide is turning says Pascale Palmer, Senior Consultant at Sauce Consultancy:
In February this year the UK’s second biggest-selling daily paper, with a circulation of 2.3m across ‘modern mid-Britain’, screamed out for readers to support its anti-plastic bags campaign. Newspapers tend to follow readers rather than set the agenda themselves, and the Banish the Bags editorial across nine colour pages was tapping into the public’s frustration at having the motivation for action but no obvious direction in which to move.
Over the past two years the media has disseminated thousands of articles concerning plastic bags – their negative impact on the environment, the duty of major retailers to discourage their use, initiatives by the Big Four supermarkets to test public reaction to bag tariffs, bag-free tills, bag recycling services, and the small triumphs of ‘revolutionary’ communities like Modbury in Devon which became Europe’s first town to ban plastic bags in 2007.
But what the Daily Mail appears to have done is carefully hang back until it senses the public tipping point. It has chosen the timing of its battle carefully and its weapons even more so. In the coverage supporting the campaign, the newspaper has focussed not on the notoriously nebulous issue of climate change, but on the danger to wildlife. Its images of turtles trapped in metres of plastic bags and its revelation of two pounds of plastic inside the digestive tract of a dead minke whale are just the kind of emotive stories that encourage outrage and the desire for action. And on the back of this wave of frustration has come further coverage such as the BBC’s focus on the Midway Islands, and the beginnings of political action.
Alistair Darling’s budget threat to impose legislation forcing retailers to charge for each plastic bag may appear slow and weak, but the supermarkets know that this time the public are leading the push for change. Sauce Consultancy has been working on a community awareness-raising plastic bags campaign in central London. The Plastic Bags are Rubbish! initiative for North Fulham’s New Deal for Communities has been giving shoppers free cotton reusable bags as well as a discount at participating local shops if they reuse their bag five times.
The campaign has met with overwhelming enthusiasm and support, with residents and retailers in the area proving they not only understand the issues involved with plastic bag use but are already searching for ways to change their own behaviour. In a survey of 200 shoppers, Sauce found that 93 per cent were concerned about the issue of plastic bags, 88 per cent used reusable bags, and 63 per cent thought plastic bags should be banned from their local area.
One local participating business said: “Customers are really happy to have a way to help the environment. So many people have started refusing plastic bags – it’s as though something has clicked with them and they have been given the courage to make a change. What is also very important is that shoppers from any background are being encouraged to do the right thing – eco actions are often associated with costing more or being only for the well-off. Participation in this campaign costs people nothing.”
This new public, media and political fervour, which saw Gordon Brown describe plastic bags as “one of the most visible symbols of environmental waste” last November, has prompted Sainsbury’s to commit to halving the number of bags it gives out within the year, Marks and Spencer and Woolworths to confirm the introduction of a charge on bags, The Body Shop to switch to reusable recycled paper bags from the summer, and the Association of Convenience Stores to encourage plastic bag reduction and back the threatened levy. Tens of local authorities are calling for the right to ban plastic bags in their boroughs and Brighton is on its way to becoming plastic bag free.
Of course, this focus on plastic bags has had its detractors and the debate is far from clear-cut. A recent Newsnight interview with Sainsbury’s CEO Justin King accused the Government of headline grabbing. As King explained, a 25 per cent reduction in the environmental impact of plastic bags by the end of 2008 had already been agreed before Darling’s new emphasis on a reduction in the number of bags. Jeremy Paxman suggested the change of focus could be laid at the feet of the Daily Mail campaign. But King’s point that the whole lifecycle of the product should be taken into consideration, rather than merely disposal, is palpably valid.
Modbury has also been the focus of immense criticism: from the town’s residents’ use of 4×4s to climate change guru James Lovelock’s comment that the community’s efforts are akin to “rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic”. And after Darling’s budget announcement, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) blasted the emphasis on plastic bags as “outrageous” when there are so many more significant contributors to climate change.
And the BRC certainly has a point. But what Director General Stephen Robertson is perhaps not taking into consideration is that behaviour change happens in stages and when people believe in and understand one issue that they can act upon, they start to understand and act upon other related issues.
Indeed, it’s a year since Modbury became plastic bag free, but the town has not stopped at plastic bags. Local retailers have introduced biodegradable packaging and energy efficient fridges, and later this month the residents are set to spend a day cleaning up their local beach. They will recycle what they can from the waste collected, and whatever is most significant in the residual waste will be the focus of their next community campaign. They suspect it will be plastic water bottles.
If the UK is to achieve and exceed its greenhouse gas emissions targets and successfully limit climate change, it needs the buy-in of the public as well as legislative and market guidance. Working with communities on specific issues, publicising successes and behaviour change actions, keeping the debate on the front pages of the popular press - all are vital tools for building a foundation of public understanding that what individuals do can make a big difference.
Facts and figures
- The average person in the UK uses 167 bags per year (Defra)
- The major supermarket chains distribute 13 billion plastic bags a year (Defra)
- Scientists estimate each plastic bag can last in the environment for 400-1000 years (New Scientist)
- Excess packaging costs the average UK family about £470 a year (London.gov.uk)
- Nearly 90 per cent of floating marine litter is plastic (Algalita Marine Research Foundation)
- Plastic production uses eight per cent of all the world’s oil production (wasteonline.org.uk)
To find out more about our credentials in climate change and CSR campaigns, contact Denise Turner on 0207 324 7780.