On 13/11/07 09:23, in article ,
"Martin" wrote:

On Mon, 12 Nov 2007 23:00:58 +0000, Sacha
wrote:

On 12/11/07 17:51, in article ,
"Martin" wrote:

On Mon, 12 Nov 2007 17:39:01 +0000, Sacha
wrote:

On 12/11/07 17:17, in article ,
"Martin" wrote:

On Mon, 12 Nov 2007 17:13:21 -0000, "Bob Hobden" wrote:

Interesting site about Modbury, the town that has banned plastic bags.
The video of a speech by Ray Anderson on the "Why and How to" page is
excellent.
http://www.plasticbagfree.com/index.php

and if anyone thinks this is OT for this ng check out the site.

I'd be more impressed if they were giving away reuseable bags.

You're still paying for your supermarket plastic bag, you just don't know
how much!

I'm not. I bought recyclable bags years ago. I don't recall the supermarket
that
made them available for a token amount getting any publicity.

Probably because they go on handing out plastic bags

Not in this case they went bust in the great Dutch supermarket price cutting
war.

Hmmmmm. No connection? ;-)
--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(remove weeds from address)
'We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our
children.'

On 13/11/07 09:48, in article
, "Sally Thompson"
wrote:

snip


Huh! Then why is it, I ask myself, when I (rarely) shop at Tesco's, and
stand there waving my own canvas bags and saying "I've got my own bags", do
they just automatically spread out the plastic ones in my way. I have been
known to have to say this three times before they take any notice. And why,
then, when I say, patiently, "you will re-use those, won't you?" when the
bags are then shoved under the counter, do they look at me blankly as though
I come from Mars?

It's all right, you don't need to answer that - just my morning rant for the
day :-)


;-)) Feeling better? I think they've only just started this initiative -
and I hope I'm right it's Tesco because now I've got a sneaky feeling I'm
not and it's M&S. So much for my morning-paper-reading attention span.
With Tesco however, if I do an online order, which I usually do, I get
'green points' if I don't ask for things to be delivered in carrier bags
unless 'absolutely necessary'. They are the ones who decide what is
'absolutely necessary' but I do end up with very few bags. When we do have
a collection, I take them to a couple of local shops who don't have their
own and they happily re-use them. Otherwise, I have the good old wicker
shopping basket and a canvas shopper. Looking for a bicycle basket the
other day (not for me!) I came across this lovely site with irresistible
baskets on it. I have no idea why they fascinate me so much but there is
something so aesthetically pleasing about proper shopping baskets!
http://www.somersetlevels.co.uk/shop...rying-baskets/
--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(remove weeds from address)
'We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our
children.'

On Nov 12, 6:50 pm, Don H3 wrote:
On Nov 12, 9:13 am, "Bob Hobden" wrote:

Interesting site about Modbury, the town that has banned plastic bags.
The video of a speech by Ray Anderson on the "Why and How to" page is
excellent.http://www.plasticbagfree.com/index.php

and if anyone thinks this is OT for this ng check out the site.
--
Regards
Bob Hobden
17mls W. of London.UK

does it mention how many of them own stock or shares
in the timber companies and paper-bag suppliers?
(ducking and running)

In Ireland we banned free plastic bags in supermarkets. The problem
was that the companies who make and distribute the bags hated it (for
obvious reasons) and the supermarkets and shops had various angles
about being unable to stop shoplifting.
The main reusable bags are fibre or plastic. By default, I just use a
small rucksack for small lots anyway. So the vested interests angle
was to try to stop the change rather than the opposite.
It worked overnight and has been an incredible success and
civilisation did not end.

Des

We use some plastic bags but our main 'carriers' are shallow cardboard
trays. They arrive flat and we make them up as needed. On busy days we
could almost have one person doing that job.
I think they cost us about 15p each

--
Sacha

15p plus the labour cost of making them up. How many can that 'one person'
make up per hour and what is the hourly rate?

So many businesses don't take the full cost of an item into consideration.

I was looking at a Roadside Public House which is on the market and the cost
of what I call 'Dead Money' on the Rent and Rates alone is £207.00 PER DAY.

When I had my factories, I did a 'Dead Money' calculation on Rent, Rates,
Gas and Electric Standing Charge, Telephone Rent, Insurances etc etc, added
it all up for the year and divided by 365. That was the cost, Sundays,
Christmas Day etc that was 'Money down the drain' BEFORE I paid for the
first member of staff to come in and switch a light on, flush the loo, turn
the heating up etc etc.

One of the hidden considerations I included in my book on starting a
business.

Sacha. Have you done a 'Dead Money' calculation? What it costs per day to
run your place as a business? I doubt it, not many do :-( They wait for the
end of the year, hand their books to the Accountant and then a year after
the Financial Year has closed, see how well they didn't do 18 months ago :-(

Mike


--
www.rnshipmates.co.uk for ALL Royal Navy Association matters
www.rneba.org.uk. The Royal Naval Electrical Branch Association.
'THE' Association to find your ex-Greenie mess mates.
www.iowtours.com for all ex-Service Reunions. More being added regularly
"Navy Days" Portsmouth 25th - 27th July 2008. RN Shipmates will be there.

In article ,
says...
On 13/11/07 08:47, in article
, "Charlie Pridham"
wrote:

In article ,
says...
On 12/11/07 17:17, in article ,
"Martin" wrote:

On Mon, 12 Nov 2007 17:13:21 -0000, "Bob Hobden" wrote:

Interesting site about Modbury, the town that has banned plastic bags.
The video of a speech by Ray Anderson on the "Why and How to" page is
excellent.
http://www.plasticbagfree.com/index.php

and if anyone thinks this is OT for this ng check out the site.

I'd be more impressed if they were giving away reuseable bags.

You're still paying for your supermarket plastic bag, you just don't know
how much! People value what they pay for, so they'll use those bags
elsewhere, too.

So does anyone have first hand experiance of plastic free bags which can
be used for wet plants? (we would gladly change but have never found any)

We use some plastic bags but our main 'carriers' are shallow cardboard
trays. They arrive flat and we make them up as needed. On busy days we
could almost have one person doing that job.
I think they cost us about 15p each but at least we feel they're fairly
eco-friendly. One woman asked us if we would give her 'some', as her cat
likes to play with them! We said we would gladly do so but would have to
charge her for them. She seemed genuinely shocked to learn that this was
because we have to pay for them. ;-)

Boxes are fine at the nursery but at shows and plant sales, we use bags,
some customers bring their own, but we need to sell to people that did
not realise they wanted to buy something as well! so if anyone knows of
bags like plastic carriers but not made of plastic, we remain interested
to hear about them.
--
Charlie Pridham, Gardening in Cornwall
www.roselandhouse.co.uk
Holders of national collections of Clematis viticella cultivars and
Lapageria rosea

In reply to 'Mike' ) who wrote this in
, I, Marvo, say :

Mike, do you have an email address I can contact you at, please?

You can email me direct (remove the daft bit) if you like.

Unc

Charlie Pridham wrote:

Boxes are fine at the nursery but at shows and plant sales, we use
bags, some customers bring their own, but we need to sell to people
that did not realise they wanted to buy something as well! so if
anyone knows of bags like plastic carriers but not made of plastic,
we remain interested to hear about them.

Try Bio bags:
http://www.biobag.no/default.pl?showPage=246

I was going to suggest compostable nappy bags but thought they might be too
small for your plants.

--
Linz
Wet Yorks

In the old days, supermarkets put out their cardboard boxes for you to put stuff in, or charged you 10p for a carrier bag. What do they do with all the boxes nowadays?

Incidentally if it's a plastic bag free town what do people put their rubbish in for the dustmen to collect? Putting "naked" food waste in a wheelly bin is extremely unhygienic.

On Nov 13, 10:01 am, "Miles - Nature" wrote:
"Bob Hobden" wrote in message

... Interesting site about Modbury, the town that has banned plastic bags.
The video of a speech by Ray Anderson on the "Why and How to" page is
excellent.
http://www.plasticbagfree.com/index.php

and if anyone thinks this is OT for this ng check out the site.
--
Regards
Bob Hobden
17mls W. of London.UK

There is an awful load of rubbish being spread about - about rubbish.
First the website spends a long time wailing about all the plastic in the
world.
Straw man. It's only the plastic bags that are this issue.
I wonder if there are any facts available on the effectiveness of projects
like
this. My suspicion is that they are ways some people try to assuage their
guilt about their useage of resources.
Take Christmas for example. How many of the people involved in that project
will buy more plastic in one set of Christmas presents than a whole years
useage
of plastic bags?


The average number of plastic bags that one family goes through per
week is surprisingly high (maybe a dozen; maybe more; I do not have
the number to hand).
Multiply it up across a country and it becomes staggering. In
Ireland, we had a dreadful litter problem from them and we simply
banned them (banned giving them away free; you are allowed to sell
them; it is s small cost; maybe 20cents; I cannot remember as I have
not bought one in years). It worked overnight. It still does not
cure cancer or fix all the other dreadful things we are doing to the
environment but it was an easy fix that stopped this particular lot of
waste. You are right in saying that it could lead to complacency
(e.g. "well that's all fixed now" mentality) but it was still worth
doing.


How many of them take their kids to school in a car when 15 minutes less
sleep
would give them time to walk them to school? How many have 4 by 4 vehicles,
never used for what they are designed, but to provide a fearful owner the
false
sense of protection from collision?
How many have a place in Europe, and are frequent fliers?
When all this is answered, it will still be a useless effort to leave well
meaning people
to be careful about their carbon footprint and prudence when using
materials.

Only governments have the power to force selfish people to behave sensibly.

"Uncle Marvo" wrote in message
...
In reply to 'Mike' ) who wrote this in
, I, Marvo, say :

Mike, do you have an email address I can contact you at, please?

You can email me direct (remove the daft bit) if you like.

Unc

Very easy to find.

Follow the threads/links in the sig

3 email addresses there alone :-)

Look forward to hearing from you

Best wishes

Mike


--
www.rnshipmates.co.uk for ALL Royal Navy Association matters
www.rneba.org.uk. The Royal Naval Electrical Branch Association.
'THE' Association to find your ex-Greenie mess mates.
www.iowtours.com for all ex-Service Reunions. More being added regularly
"Navy Days" Portsmouth 25th - 27th July 2008. RN Shipmates will be there.

In reply to Martin ) who wrote this in
, I, Marvo, say :

Do you also have a significant deposit on PEP bottles to make people
return them to supermarkets? Big business is pressuring the EU to
make charging a deposit illegal.

Is PEP a plastic bottle, like a water bottle?

I understand that we ship them to China to be burnt. I find that disgusting
for a variety of reasons. Why can't we have biodegradable or properly
recycleable ones, it must be possible?

On Nov 13, 12:09 pm, Martin wrote:
On Tue, 13 Nov 2007 03:48:48 -0800, Des Higgins wrote:
On Nov 13, 10:01 am, "Miles - Nature" wrote:
"Bob Hobden" wrote in message

... Interesting site about Modbury, the town that has banned plastic bags.
The video of a speech by Ray Anderson on the "Why and How to" page is
excellent.
http://www.plasticbagfree.com/index.php

and if anyone thinks this is OT for this ng check out the site.
--
Regards
Bob Hobden
17mls W. of London.UK

There is an awful load of rubbish being spread about - about rubbish.
First the website spends a long time wailing about all the plastic in the
world.
Straw man. It's only the plastic bags that are this issue.
I wonder if there are any facts available on the effectiveness of projects
like
this. My suspicion is that they are ways some people try to assuage their
guilt about their useage of resources.
Take Christmas for example. How many of the people involved in that project
will buy more plastic in one set of Christmas presents than a whole years
useage
of plastic bags?

The average number of plastic bags that one family goes through per
week is surprisingly high (maybe a dozen; maybe more; I do not have
the number to hand).
Multiply it up across a country and it becomes staggering. In
Ireland, we had a dreadful litter problem from them and we simply
banned them (banned giving them away free; you are allowed to sell
them; it is s small cost; maybe 20cents; I cannot remember as I have
not bought one in years). It worked overnight.

Do you also have a significant deposit on PEP bottles to make people return them
to supermarkets? Big business is pressuring the EU to make charging a deposit
illegal.
--

Martin

No; no deposit. There are quite a few "recycling" points for them
which makes it look ok but I THINK most of them get sent to China to
be incinerated (not quite as wasteful as it sounds as there is a long
line of empty ships going back to China after delivering stuff to
Europe and they do generate some heat and electricity from it) which
kind of defeats the purpose. At least it stops them going to landfill
but I am not sure how easy it is to genuinely recycle them. As a
society we generate vast amounts of them.

Des

In reply to Martin ) who wrote this in
, I, Marvo, say :

On Tue, 13 Nov 2007 12:12:14 -0000, "Uncle Marvo"
wrote:

In reply to Martin ) who wrote this in
, I, Marvo, say :

Do you also have a significant deposit on PEP bottles to make people
return them to supermarkets? Big business is pressuring the EU to
make charging a deposit illegal.

Is PEP a plastic bottle, like a water bottle?

Yes


I understand that we ship them to China to be burnt. I find that
disgusting for a variety of reasons. Why can't we have biodegradable
or properly recycleable ones, it must be possible?

Big business goes for the cheapest solution?

Big business is a b'stard. I buy them occasionally cos the tank water tastes
pretty horrible if it isn't boiled, but I used to be able to fill them up
with tap water. I can't now because most of them have non-removeable lids
which purport to be "for easy pouring". That is not the reason, obv.

And before anyone says that filling plastic bottles with tap water causes
cancer, look at snopes or urbanmyth :-)

On Tue, 13 Nov 2007 10:24:04 +0000, Sacha wrote
(in article ) :

On 13/11/07 09:48, in article
, "Sally Thompson"
wrote:

snip


Huh! Then why is it, I ask myself, when I (rarely) shop at Tesco's, and
stand there waving my own canvas bags and saying "I've got my own bags", do
they just automatically spread out the plastic ones in my way. I have been
known to have to say this three times before they take any notice. And why,
then, when I say, patiently, "you will re-use those, won't you?" when the
bags are then shoved under the counter, do they look at me blankly as though
I come from Mars?

It's all right, you don't need to answer that - just my morning rant for the
day :-)


;-)) Feeling better? I think they've only just started this initiative -
and I hope I'm right it's Tesco because now I've got a sneaky feeling I'm
not and it's M&S. So much for my morning-paper-reading attention span.
With Tesco however, if I do an online order, which I usually do, I get
'green points' if I don't ask for things to be delivered in carrier bags
unless 'absolutely necessary'. They are the ones who decide what is
'absolutely necessary' but I do end up with very few bags. When we do have
a collection, I take them to a couple of local shops who don't have their
own and they happily re-use them. Otherwise, I have the good old wicker
shopping basket and a canvas shopper. Looking for a bicycle basket the
other day (not for me!) I came across this lovely site with irresistible
baskets on it. I have no idea why they fascinate me so much but there is
something so aesthetically pleasing about proper shopping baskets!
http://www.somersetlevels.co.uk/shop...rying-baskets/


Nice baskets, but I think I would feel seriously old with the basket on
wheelsg

We have our own green heavy-weight ones which are fantastic for shopping:
http://www.localtoludlow.org.uk/news.html (scroll down to the green ones
shown under October 2006).


--
Sally in Shropshire, UK
http://www.freerice.com/index.php
Give free rice to hungry people by playing a simple word game

"Sally Thompson" wrote in message
We have our own green heavy-weight ones which are fantastic for shopping:
http://www.localtoludlow.org.uk/news.html (scroll down to the green ones
shown under October 2006).


That is the type we use. Fantastic. They fold flat. Are just the right size
for all sorts of things. We have 4 and can get our shop into them usually,
if not we use the Supermarket plastic bags and re-use them in the flip top
rubbish bin or nasties before putting them in the dustbin

But those canvas bags are wonderful

Mike


--
www.rnshipmates.co.uk for ALL Royal Navy Association matters
www.rneba.org.uk. The Royal Naval Electrical Branch Association.
'THE' Association to find your ex-Greenie mess mates.
www.iowtours.com for all ex-Service Reunions. More being added regularly
"Navy Days" Portsmouth 25th - 27th July 2008. RN Shipmates will be there.