It would be a waste of time and energy to levy this charge at source as it is consumers who are responsible for the bags ending up as visible litter pollutants caught in flagpoles, ditches, hedges, telephone poles or lying on the roadside, along canal and river banks, etc. It is the end customer, not the retailer, who is causing the pollution. The imposition of a charge at source would not have any effect from a litter point of view and this levy is primarily an anti-litter measure.
On primary packaging such as fertiliser bags and land drainage, I am aware of the problems to which the Deputy referred, particularly in County Galway. There was huge concern about this matter at one stage. There has been an improvement in this area since those incidents occurred. It was silage wrapping rather than fertiliser bags which allegedly caused the problems in Galway. The Irish Film Producers Packaging Association has a fantastic record on the re-use and recycling of such plastics.
In regard to the differentiation between so-called biodegradable shopping bags and ordinary shopping bags, it does not matter to members of the public or make a difference to the litter problem whether a plastic bag which is fluttering in the breeze is biodegradable as it is still an unsightly piece of litter. The biodegradable bags have the advantage of disintegrating over a period of three, four or six months, but members of the public or tourists would not find it any more acceptable to see biodegradable plastic bags fluttering in the breeze. It would be extremely difficult to make a distinction—