“Wonderful news! congratulations to all NI MLAs, especially the ones that have already taken the ASAP pledge!

‘this is GREAT news….’ says Baglady. ‘But I bet the finance department won’t make much money from it, so we must ensure that funding for all environment issues is protected, cos in Australia the governments have really lost the plot. However Baglady is working on it.”

In 2007 Trillick in Northern Ireland lead the NEEDabag campaign to highlight the waste produced by single use plastic bags, the local Costcutter cut plastic bag usage in half! Watch this film
and you can hear more about how the NEEDabag campaign was successful in County Fermanagh with schools and local shops working together.
At that time the campaign was endorsed by the Minister for the Environment Arlene Foster, and supported by many including West Tyrone MLA Barry McElduff who suggested: “we need to bring these changes to The Assembly and legislate to ensure a massive reduction in single use plastic bags for the whole country”.

This week sees the draft proposed by Alex Attwood the Minister for the Environment agreed by The Assembly and from 8th April almost everyone will be charged at least 5p for new, single use carrier bags wherever they shop.

We use nearly 250 million carrier bags in Northern Ireland every year some are reused or recycled though many end up as waste whether in landfill or littering, they do not disappear for a long long time!
The NI Assembly’s Research and Library service briefing note discussing the impact of paper and plastic bags under four categories: decomposition, the manufacturing process, their reusability and their recyclability.

We must ALL always remember if you NEEDabag then BRING a bag everytime you go…..
any queries about how the levy will be applied see nidirect government services