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Many in line at the supermarket have probably noticed: the tax that has made a plastic bag now costs seven crowns. And it’s had an effect: Since its introduction in May, plastic bag sales have plummeted 60 percent or more, at least in the grocery trade.
But the fact that fewer taxed plastic bags are being sold doesn’t necessarily have to be good for the environment. Pär Bygdeson, CEO of the industrial organization Livsmedelshandlarna, believes it may have been the other way around.
– According to many stores, customers have started to buy plastic bags on a roll or paper bags duty free. And they are no better for the environment than plastic bags, which are often reused and end up as garbage bags.
Unclear environmental benefits
Plastic, paper, or maybe fabric? The question of which bag is least harmful to the environment has been relevant for a long time, but it does not have a clear answer. The advice for those who want to minimize their environmental impact is to use each bag as many times as possible, regardless of the material.
Runar Brännlund, professor of environmental economics at Umeå University, also questions the environmental benefits of the tax. He believes that plastic bags do not cause much litter in Swedish nature compared to many other products and packaging. And that, therefore, it will be difficult to understand what politicians want to achieve:
– No one has explained why it is only the transport bags that should be taxed and not all the plastic ones. And why aren’t exceptions made for recycled plastic bags when other fossil raw materials are exempt from tax? The tax lacks logic, and such risks erode confidence in environmental policy.
Forecast
Initially, the tax on plastic bags withdrew about SEK 25 million per month from the Treasury. But according to figures SVT received from the Swedish Revenue Agency, revenue was cut in half in August to 10.3 million. The government’s forecast, that the tax alone would raise $ 2.1 billion this year, appears to be making a real mistake.
Despite this, the Minister of Financial Markets for Bolund (MP) is satisfied with how the tax has worked:
– We see that the use of plastic bags has fallen incredibly fast and this means that the use of resources and the risk of littering in nature is reduced.
But there are other plastics that cause big environmental problems, why not tax it?
– We work with all the garbage problem. Of course, the use of other plastics should also be reduced, for example by banning products that are not necessary. And there can also be financial penalties against disposable plastic.