British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's next environmental target is said to be plastic bags.

The Central Office of Information said yesterday: "We already advise our clients to consider alternatives - such as hemp - but as part of this initiative, the purchase of plastic bags will be phased out with immediate effect."

According to Guardian calculations, six government departments and the publicly-funded Electoral Commission bought 976,106 plastic bags for promotion and marketing purposes last year. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs estimates 13bn bags are given out by retailers to UK shoppers every year. Each takes up to 1,000 years to decay.

Mike Webster, of the pressure group Waste Watch, said: "Laid end to end [the bags] would reach 400km - about enough to reach from London to Paris." -- Guardian

This comes following the announcement by the quintessentially British brand Marks and Spencer that they will soon make a small charge to consumers for plastic bags. Other, frankly bigger, brands have refused to participate in a voluntary moratorium on free bags.

The major supermarkets use 17.5 billion bags a year, more than 290 a year for each person in Britain. Some particularly stupid people are arguing that this represents a great form of carbon sequestration -- plastic bags do not degrade for a thousand years in a landfill, cunningly locking in all those hydrocarbons. It could be a new environmental clarion call -- Save the planet and throw plastic in landfill. Stranger things have happened. Remember, you heard it here first.

Anyway, back in the Real World, plastic bags are a problem. The end up in landfill, they poison the seas and hurt wildlife. Most bags we have from stores in Britain are thin and only used once.

On the other hand, it is fairly clear that the politicians are using some subtle slight of hand here. Basically it runs a bit like this.

1. Politicians identify Problem A.
2. In order to avoid doing anything about Problem A they instead focus on Problem B.
3. Politicians talk up problem B and make it out to be the most serious environmental issue that exists.
4. Politicians then make very strident public efforts showing how hard it is to tackle Problem B.
5. After some discussion and some months, the Politicians make a big show of 'dealing' with Problem B.
6. Problem B becomes the showpiece Environmental Performance which is then used endlessly to show off Politician's green credentials.
7. Problem A is never given the publicity of Problem B even though the implications are far more serious.

The thing is that plastic bags are not the most serious waste issue. According to the British government, post-consumer plastic bags represent 0.3% of the total waste stream. There does need to be a law aiming to reduce the prevalence of plastic bags. Where they are still used, they should be fully biodegradable. Better still, we need an increased use of reusable bags, preferably made from waste materials. Communities which have banned the bag should be celebrated and others encouraged to get involved.