:: Ireland to introduce a chewing gum tax ::
Ireland continues to blaze a trail with it's
polluter pays tax policy being extended from
plastic bags to include
chewing gum, polystyrene
fast food containers + cash machine
receipts...
Earth-Info.Net notes that
Wrigley's chewing gum say this tax unfairly penalises people who don't make a habit a discarding gum irresponsibly, which is true, but also notes that council's are having to spend a
disproportionate amount of their funds (
£50,000 in Brighton alone) dealing with a
problem caused by a
specific group of consumers.
Interestingly,
plastic bag use has
dropped by 90% in Ireland and environmentally responsible alternatives such as
biodegradable,
tapioca +
jute bags are increasingly being offered to shoppers.
To give you an idea of the scale of the problem... British consumers get through
3,000,000,000 packets of chewing gum +
20,000,000,000 plastic bags each year.
Earth-Info.Net therefore hopes that similar
taxes will be included in the UK's forthcoming
anti-litter bill.