'Poor enforcement led to bag tax'

Major suppliers of plastic bags have attributed the introduction of the 15c tax in the latest 'green' budget to the government's inability to enforce the eco tax introduced in 2004.

They claim the government has been unable to ensure the correct taxation of different carrier bags and believe the new tax would actually lead to more conventional plastic entering the waste stream.

The 15c tax coming into force next year does not differentiate between degradable and conventional plastics and is therefore easier to control. The eco tax it replaces, on the other hand, taxes plastics according to their associated environmental burden.

Resources Ministry permanent secretary Chris Ciantar confirmed that "enforcement is a headache". It required the co-operation of the ministry and the VAT department that was responsible for collecting the eco tax on behalf of government.

"Suppliers have been marketing bags as degradable products even when they had a very low percentage of degradability," Mr Ciantar said.

"They were involved in the development of standards. They are aware it was not practical to enforce those standards because if suppliers were caught misleading consumers on the kind of plastic they were supplying, the way the standards were framed ensured they could not be penalised in court."

The standards being referred to are the first of their kind, according to Michael Stephen, a member of the British Standards Institute panel on Biodegradability of Plastics.

Speaking at a conference last week, Mr Stephen said: "Malta should be proud to have been the first country to have introduced a fiscal incentive for enviro-friendly plastics as well as a technical specification for degradable plastics, especially since the initiative was followed by several other, much larger countries. It would be a shame to throw all this away by taxing all bags at the same value."

Mr Ciantar said, however, that the aim of the new measure was to reduce the amount of plastic on the market: "The idea is to create a consciousness among consumers to avoid plastic. Rather than the situation we have now where plastic bags are handed out freely, people will be more careful if they are paying 15c for each bag and possibly take cloth carrier bags with them."

He said similar measures introduced in Ireland resulted in a 90 per cent reduction in plastic bags.

Benjamin Farrugia, director of Longbow Ltd, a company that supplies the local market with degradable plastics, argued otherwise.

He said the initial decrease in the use of plastic bags in Ireland was replaced by an increase in the sales of other plastic products to replace carrier bags, particularly bin liners.

Evidence presented to the Scottish Parliament in 2005 showed that Tesco experienced a 77 per cent increase in pedal bin liner sales, Superquinn benefitted from an 84 per cent rise in the sale of nappy disposal bags and Supervalue/Centra increased its sales of swing bin liners by 75 per cent.

Mr Farrugia said: "Plastic carrier bags have multiple uses and benefits. They will still be supplied to the market with the difference that suppliers will resort to cheaper carrier bags that carry a larger environmental burden. This would increase the amount of conventional plastic in our waste stream," insisting that the solution is to increase enforcement by ensuring a compliance trail.

Robert Abela, director of Traplas, a local company that invested in the manufacturing of biodegradable plastics after the introduction of the eco tax in 2004, said: "Serious enforcement from the VAT department could have avoided this. They could always verify what kind of bag was being supplied through the provision of a certificate from the supplier."

Mr Abela referred to the government's flip-flopping on such policies as dangerous for industry: "Industry needs to make investments according to such decisions. When they are overturned shortly after they have been announced, and at such short notice with no real consultation, it creates tremendous difficulties and does not inspire confidence."