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Even those in support fully admit that GW, a super niche hobby firm, isn't going to do much by reducing their plastic waste; on a national or global scale.

However its not just GW is it - its GW AND other highstreet brands, stores and firms coming under legislation and pressure to reduce non-essential plastics in their packing.

GW taking the right step means one more firm toing the line and setting the standard that others can follow.


At the small end one firm has no impact; at the big end every supermarket reducing in the UK resulted in at least two (I think) plastic bag factories shutting down entirely due to lack of demand.




It's one drop in the ocean, it has zero impact on global scales. But if you add it up with all the other drops from firms doing it in a country; that's a bigger drop.

 Haighus wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:
I'm sure that they'll also stop producing products in China and shipping them halfway around the world as well...

In fairness, GW produce most of their product in the UK, which results in a lot less miles for European distribution. Probably about even for US distribution and worse for East Asia and Oceania though...

Although given the explosive Chinese progress in green energy, I wouldn't be surprised if Chinese production becomes significantly greener than "Western" production over the next decade. The UK has a fairly high renewable energy proportion but it isn't growing anywhere near as fast.

Counter-intuitively it's more or less carbon free shipping from the UK to china - the empty containers are already travelling in that direction so all you're adding is a small bit of extra weight, which for plastic crack is trivial.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
When I get my groceries delivered? I don’t bother with bags. Sure it involves a bit of running back and forth when it arrives, but again, hardly a Labour of Hercules.

Your local foodbank is almost certainly desperate for bags to do the deliveries. If you take the bags from your home deliveries then it makes your life easier and then donate them afterwards to make theirs easier.

Beyond that, i generally try and use as few plastic bags as possible and bin as few of them as possible.

It's good that they're getting rid of the plastic bags, I think we should reduce plastic packaging as well. Like do the boxes really need to be shrink wrapped? And more broadly of course.

But I also 100% think private jets should just not be a thing. And climate summits should be done over video conferences. There is a rotten hypocrisy in a lot of this stuff that I sometimes have to wonder if it's intentional to discredit the environmental movement.

 Da Boss wrote:
It's good that they're getting rid of the plastic bags, I think we should reduce plastic packaging as well. Like do the boxes really need to be shrink wrapped? And more broadly of course.

But I also 100% think private jets should just not be a thing. And climate summits should be done over video conferences. There is a rotten hypocrisy in a lot of this stuff that I sometimes have to wonder if it's intentional to discredit the environmental movement.

As much as the pandemic helped there's still a huge bias for "we have to do this in person for it to mean something" in a lot of businesses; not just climate summits.

Also don't forget a lot of things that happen at these events happen outside of the formal presentations and talks. When people are eating food and talking; or when milling around etc... Ergo the whole "talk around the water cooler" is sometimes as much a part of the conference as the speeches and formal debates. If you make it all webcams only we don't really have the technology and social infrastructure in place for many people to "splinter off and talk about your own thing to people" like in a virtual meeting environment.

Attempts have been made toward that, but its still in the realm of "this is more sci-fi than really how we do things."

To me, extremely weak arguments for having the harm done by all these private jets if we're serious about this. We'll curtail conveniences for the proles, but we just NEED to meet in a five star resort in an exotic locale, and we also NEED to fly there by private jet? Nah, no thanks.

The last spectacle of everyone flying in to a petro-state to discuss sustainability was bad comedy, at the very least, the optics of it are so bad they do massive damage to the credibility of the environmental movement.

Soulless wrote:

But the large waste of a few doesnt harm nearly as much as the small waste of the large mass.

Citation needed.

 Miguelsan wrote:
all the recyclable trash is collected into one truck, and supposedly sorted out at the recyclable center.

If it's sorted at all. There's a number of places here in the US where the waste trucks and recycling trucks go to the same facility and it all ends up back together to be dumped at the landfill with no actual recycling happening.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 BertBert wrote:
People don't use backpacks these days?

Backpacks are on the list of things people with overinflated egos refuse to use, I guess because they're associated with being in school.

What a bizarre take.

I wish retailers would offer paper bags with handles. Carrying stuff without a bag isn't an option for everyone, and you can't expect people to bring a bag for something like Warhammer stuff.

Recycling in the US is mostly feel good theatre, like the TSA ‘security’ checks at airports. It makes people feel all warm and fuzzy that they’re helping the environment. The reality is that most of those ‘recyclables’ end up in the trash anyway, as there is no actual market or use for them.

I carry a crumple up/squish up shopping bag that is about the size of a (squishy) tennis ball. Its plenty big for grocery shopping, and GW shopping. I could fit several troop boxes in there no problem. I bought a large board game (think Axis and Allies or Gloomhaven) and it fit, albeit sticking out the top.

While the US does have pretty bad overall record with recycling, it doesn't stop me from using reusable bags, AND it certainly has made it a lot cleaner around the city without all the plastic bags blowing around.

Now, the additional tax on sugary drinks...

 mattl wrote:
..., and you can't expect people to bring a bag for something like Warhammer stuff.

Why not?


It takes a little while to entrench the habit, but it's not a hardship to carry a bag or two when you go shopping. I have a bunch of canvas or cloth bags that fold or roll up small. Whenever I'm going to the shops, I chuck one in my pocket, or use one of them to hold a few extras if I'm expecting to be buying a bit of stuff.

 mattl wrote:
I wish retailers would offer paper bags with handles. Carrying stuff without a bag isn't an option for everyone, and you can't expect people to bring a bag for something like Warhammer stuff.

You can't make sure you pick up a bag when going shopping?
Whenever I go into town, I stuff a folded bag into a coat pocket. It is probably one I've had for 3+ years, and I have a few because I kept forgetting to take them when the bag-fine started coming in. Now it's a certainty that I will have a bag when I leave the house.
Paper bags aren't really a thing in the UK any more. Takeaway meal deliveries usually come in them these days, but shops have not gone back to providing them since the sturdy plastic 'bags for life' came out around 10-15 years ago.

For leasure trips out and impulse purchases, I would not have a bag with me. That's where GW can sell me an overpriced bag if I needed one. But then, I'd probably order and pay in the store for the purchase to be delivered to my home instead.

Most opportunistic buys are going to be small for most people anyway. A book, a box of models etc...

It's much rarer that you'll be out and about and suddenly have a burning need to walk into a GW store and spend £300 on a spur of the moment.

GW has those marketing boxes of paint pots if you buy a certain number all at once so even getting lots of supplies would be fairly easy to carry.



And if every store is doing away with plastic bags through this policy you'd steadily learn to carry a backpack or bags if you're doing casual shopping around; plus there will steadily be easier and cheaper access to lots of quick to buy "long term" bags like supermarkets do.




Heck you could even go retro and start carrying a wicker basket to put your purchases in like people did before shops had carrier bags .

 Skinnereal wrote:

Paper bags aren't really a thing in the UK any more. Takeaway meal deliveries usually come in them these days, but shops have not gone back to providing them since the sturdy plastic 'bags for life' came out around 10-15 years ago.

.

Clothes shops still commonly have paper bags for whatever reason. They are definitely less durable though, have a habit of splitting or the handles detaching. I think it works for clothes because they are usually pretty lightweight and flexible.

 Skinnereal wrote:
You can't make sure you pick up a bag when going shopping?

Warhammer/GW stores are usually in places where they plan to get a number of people walking by who stop in and the manager tries to get them to buy a starter set. Those starter sets aren't easy to carry without a bag.

But generally no, I don't have a bag on me. If I go to a Warhammer store it's usually when I'm doing something else and wind up nearby.

And lots of kids going into the store with empty backpacks... often a 1 person store... yeah, GW will love that.

 mattl wrote:
Those starter sets aren't easy to carry without a bag.

Are you emptying out the contents and leaving the box behind...?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
We’re all part of the problem to some degree or other, so we all need to do something to address it,

Well, one way to address the problem is to not create it in the first place.

Buy less stuff, create less waste. You'll do more for the environment if you fill your mug with water and stay hydrated, than spending money on that sugary coffee drink with the strange colors.

 insaniak wrote:

 mattl wrote:
Those starter sets aren't easy to carry without a bag.

Are you emptying out the contents and leaving the box behind...?

And if you are also buying a starter paint set and a couple of rattle cans? That big paper bag would have come in handy. When I worked in a gw store, most starter sets weren't sold to people who were deliberately planning on walking away with anything at all.

 Skinnereal wrote:
Whenever I go into town, I stuff a folded bag into a coat pocket.

Yeah, I guess in Britain you're wearing a coat 363 days out of the year?

But I still don't see why they wouldn't just do paper bags, other retailers do it for us heathens that can't be arsed carrying bags around everywhere. I just end up using the paper bags around the house or as rubbish bags for things that aren't going to eat through them.

My local GW, there's literally another games store a few hundred metres down the road that uses branded paper bags.

Usually I want a bag because I'm picking up small loose stuff rather than big orders, sticking a big ol' starter set isn't that convenient to carry in a bag anyway, if I'm buying something that big (and since it's GW, expensive) it's usually a predetermined purchase which means I've probably driven to the shop and parked close to I can just carry it bagless and toss it in the car.

When I'm walking around randomly and the games store wasn't my primary location to visit, that's when I might buy a few smaller things and need a bag, or when I walk in for 1 paint and walk out with a small pile of hobby supplies.

GW plastic bags were nice though, sometimes I just need a big ol' tough plastic bag and the GW ones fit the bill without being so numerous they're clogging up the house or degrading before they get used.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Skinnereal wrote:
Whenever I go into town, I stuff a folded bag into a coat pocket.

Yeah, I guess in Britain you're wearing a coat 363 days out of the year?

Yep, but I'm weird.

 insaniak wrote:

 mattl wrote:
Those starter sets aren't easy to carry without a bag.

Are you emptying out the contents and leaving the box behind...?

No. But it’s not an easy thing to carry at the best of time. If you bought groceries of a similar size you’d get a bag.

 mattl wrote:

No. But it’s not an easy thing to carry at the best of time. If you bought groceries of a similar size you’d get a bag.

If I bought groceries that came in a box the size of a starter box, I absolutely would not get a bag as it would be easier to just carry the box instead of a bag big enough to hold a starter set.

But then, if I was buying groceries, I would have taken bags with me anyway...

Or just buy less stuff.

I still think it's virtue signaling when your view of environmentalism is using one less coffee sleeve, when you should be rinsing your mug at the office.

To those saying "use paper bags" seem to forget those were phased out to save the trees and rain forest.

 fox-light713 wrote:
To those saying "use paper bags" seem to forget those were phased out to save the trees and rain forest.

I mean, yes... but also no.

Plastic bags were originally introduced as a more environmentally friendly solution to paper bags, because they used fewer resources to create... but we weren't supposed to just throw them away afterwards. And because plastic bags are difficult to recycle, they mostly go straight into landfill, where they remain effectively forever.

Paper bags are more resource intensive, but paper recycling and sustainable wood harvesting are both considerably more established than they were 50 years ago. So paper bags aren't perfect, but they're currently a better alternative than single-use plastic bags.

Surely 9 years into a single use bag ban, everyone is more or less primed to carry their own bag?

I can see some impulse buyers getting caught out especially if there's no multi-use bags for sale, but I'm assuming GW found that demand had dropped enough to get rid of them.

Worst case is that you may need to go to another shop to get a bag, or make a deal for a bin bag. You'd only really be screwed if you visited an isolated shop without a car.

Herzlos wrote:
Surely 9 years into a single use bag ban, everyone is more or less primed to carry their own bag?

I can see some impulse buyers getting caught out especially if there's no multi-use bags for sale, but I'm assuming GW found that demand had dropped enough to get rid of them.

Worst case is that you may need to go to another shop to get a bag, or make a deal for a bin bag. You'd only really be screwed if you visited an isolated shop without a car.

I think in the UK, this is the case. The opinions in this thread are very strongly split by the country flags, and posters with a UK flag are mostly in line with this not being a big change. As you say, we've gotten used to carrying bags for almost a decade. I never used to have a bag when the change happened. Now I rarely go shopping without one (and have a preference for stuffing items in pockets/holding in arms over buying a bag if possible).

I think other jurisdictions would see similar behaviour changes over time in response to similar legislation.

I doubt this bag-free policy is going to be rolled out globally at the same time. Seems like something that would be introduced in the most-bag free areas already to start with.

A few comments...

1. The last GW bag I got (many moons ago) had pics all over it and I kept it for ages. Good advertising for them.
2. Paper bags... in the UK... where it rains nearly every day... nope. Just nope.
3. I'm surprised GW aren't selling them as 'bags for life' at a significantly increased profit margin with different images to make them 'collectable'.
4. I have an old Asda plastic bag for life. They fold up flat to a size of a mobile phone. It fits in my back pocket and it doesn't matter if it goes through the wash either. It also gains brownie points when my wife has forgot a bag while out with me.