Plastic and water-saving law strikes again!

After my post about legislation as a way to regulate the use of water, and my thoughts on the importance of bottom-up pressure in order to support effective legislative change, an instance of the success of new law implementation came to mind.

In October 2015 a new law was implemented in England.
It requires "large shops in England to charge 5p for all single-use plastic carrier bags."

Such a simple, straight-forward law, already in place in many nearby countries such as Ireland, Wales and Scotland, was viewed as a potential source of chaos and angered customers by some, but one year on, the results have been very promising.

At the end of July, figures indicated there was a drop of 85% in use of plastic bags since the previous year's law implementation, or an astonishing 6bn fewer plastic bags.
All thanks to a 5p charge.

In addition to the benefits of reduced use of plastic bags, it meant that over £29 million made from sales of bags which were sold at a 5p charge were given as donations to charities and community groups.

As an estimated and unimaginable 8 million tons of plastic end up in our oceans each year, this is a relatively positive start in terms of reducing waste and pollution.

This legislative action has resulted in the number of plastic bags found on beaches reduced by almost half.


This infographic shows additional data on plastic bans around the world.




Source: reusethisbag.com

The plastic charge law saved a remarkable amount of plastic from being used. But...water?

As discussed in my initial post, everything we use has a water cost.

This tax implementation, in fact, saved water twice: the virtual water from the production of additional plastic bags production, and water from being polluted with the plastic that would have been used and ended up in the sea, on beaches, on the ocean floor had the law not been put into place.

It takes 24 gallons / >109 litres of water to produce 1lb / >450g of plastic.
The plastic bag charge can be seen as a victory in terms of reducing the use of water as a positive, collateral advantage.

Within this context, change happened once people were nudged into being more careful about using plastic, with a fee...

A study showing that the charge in Wales had become even more successful after its implementation (Poortinga et. al) supports the positive outcome of what can be an example of behavioural economics, a complement paradigm of "rational-man economics" as a way of "internalising externalities through the mechanism of price" (Dietz et al., 2011 : 74)


This law worked in Wales and it's proven to work well in England too.
It is currently compulsory for large businesses only, but if the law was to be extended to cover small businesses, the benefits could evidently be even greater.

Nevertheless, plastic bags and the pollution and water cost they hold constitute a small part within the multitude of the habits we have that are harmful to our environment.

The bag charge success could be taken further, and act as equally beneficial within the context of other similarly omnipresent "convenient" single-use containers, such as coffee cups or plastic bottles.

However, calls for charge on coffee cups was recently rejected in the UK, so more work needs to be done to achieve laws which will efficiently reduce pollution.

The need to be nudged into making better choices when it comes to convenience items remains, yet the bag charge law equally remains the best example of its success.

Individual vs Legislative Approaches to Use of Water - Part 2

(Continued from part 1)

After consulting a variety of documents I read through DEFRA's (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) report from March 2016, "Enabling resilience in the water sector" added on Water UK's website. 
In relation to next year's deregulation plan, point 73 is centred on promoting markets, and water is considered as an asset delivering benefits, improving incentives and facilitating markets.

The document states that "The sector needs to adapt to ensure that it can continue to meet the needs of people, businesses and the environment – and the Government’s framework needs to adapt too." (Water.org.uk)

The sentiment is that as the population continues to grow, and the effect of climate change will put more pressure on the delivery of access to water at the same level as it is now, there will be the need to make water supplies more resilient. 
However, there are no indicators that legislation may be stricter specifically in terms of water use in the first place, except perhaps during emergency periods, such as droughts, with water restrictions put in place on those occasions (point 13). 

Another minor sign that attention will be given to reducing leakage to a minimum, and efficiently reusing water and helping customers in using water efficiently is included in the last paragraph from point 20 (DEFRA, 2016).

 

UK drought, The Guardian, 2011

The paragraph on "Boosting business resilience" in Part 2 states that: "Without a step change in our national approach, lack of access to adequate water supplies could lead to some businesses being unable to operate while farmers and growers could lose crops or have lower quality crops. If enough power stations had reduced operations due to lack of cooling water, this could affect the national grid particularly if other generation sources were unavailable." (DEFRA, 2016).

The focus, once again, is on boosting business resilience, which is seeking a solution to conditions becoming harder and more challenging; supporting businesses to be resilient, enabling collaboration between businesses and water companies... but what about farmers shifting to growing crops which are less water intensive? If other generation sources of power were to be unavailable, wouldn't that be an opportunity to push for investment for renewable energy production, such as solar energy, for which no water is needed, unlike during the extraction of coal?

"Long-term planning and investment" being mentioned as "essential to securing the water sector's resilience" show the evident colonisation of water as something that can be, and is, a source of or intrinsic to production for human use and advantage.

The conclusion confirms the "business as usual" attitude: "[...] continue to meet the needs of people, businesses and the environment." [...] "continue to work with the water industry, regulators, consumer groups and other water users to deliver, and ensure that our policy framework enables the transition to a more resilient water sector."

As regulations don't show any shift towards a less water-intensive production system, there should be more pressure on politicians to encourage, promote and invest in renewable energy and more efficient use of water, to minimise waste in forms of leakage and lower the overall need for water in the agricultural industry as well as commercial production.

To reach that stage there must be pressure put upon politicians who are likely to have economic interests above environmental ones, who value short-term gains over long-term resource availability.

This thought process identifying the issue from a legislative point, has made me realise that my personal conclusion closes off in a loop, coming back to personal and individual action.

Understanding the elements which determine high use or high saving of water is vital, yet if the majority of individuals who are more likely to suffer the consequences of lack of access to safe water do not put pressure on policy-makers, legislators and members of the government, it is unlikely that meaningful change is going to take place before drastic measures will have to be adopted.

Individual vs Legislative Approaches to Use of Water - Part 1

As you can tell by my previous post, I believe in everybody's power to make the most at having their voice heard.

Many people feel that what they can do when it comes to climate change or environmental depletion may be worthless, however I am of the opinion that when each person's initiatives and actions are combined, the results can be truly meaningful and an aid to spur positive change in mindset which can result in a lower virtual water footprint.

At the same time, my eyes and mind remain wide open: all it takes is one conversation to challenge my views and encourage me to think differently.

I had one of these conversations with a fellow student who also selected the Global Environmental Change module I'm taking at university as part of my Environment and Sustainable Development course. His views revolve around true powerful change lying in policy-making.

A metaphorical cookie was dropped in my mind and enabled me to consider a top-bottom approach point of view many times, and within different contexts, since. This is my initial surface scratch of finding out what is going on at that level, divided in two posts.

It's fair to think that for virtual water most people would at least partially concede that our current use of water is simply unsustainable long-term.
On a planet where as little as 1% of fresh water is readily accessible and such great need for it is due to our great levels of relentless and constant production, something should be done, right?

While most people I know do not really think of global water use and resources' availability, especially because they are simply unaware, if they were aware, one argument could be that if such great use of water occurs but plays such a big part in the planet's depletion of basic sources, how is it possible? How is it allowed? How is it legal?

My attention shifted towards water policies and regulations.

Trying to look at it from a political ecology perspective, I find that when it comes to water and its use, our societal system is made up of intricacies which link very different fundamental natural components - water in my case - which comes in different forms and is seized from a variety of geographical locations and in variable quantities according to local accessibility and potential.

This natural basic element is harnessed because of its primary use in our anthropocentric age, both for direct consumption and as a necessity in production and industry sectors.

This control and management of water is itself directed and determined by our system which links the environment, social and economic facets of our society within a capitalist, neoliberal ideology.

For my legislation-related search, I started off by looking into water privatisation in the UK and its effects since it took place in 1989, described as generally contrasting to the aim of increasing the efficiency of the water system.
Then I realised I should search regulations and their enforcements on an even bigger scale, at a higher, industrial level.

The Ofwat website, the economic regulator of the water sector in England and Wales, seemed to be a good start for my search.

The legislation section gives an insight of how efficient water use and regulations aimed at reducing the use and consumption, as well as the general management, of water has to fit within several bureaucratic structures.

Legislation covers different areas including environmental standards, economic regulation of the sector, water supply, flood and drought protection and adaptation.
In addition to that, Ofwat has to comply with different Acts of Parliament and European Directives. What readily comes to mind is that addressing these regulations in post-Brexit UK will probably be even more of a challenge, as water basins have no borders, after all.

What does this mean for use of water in the UK?
There is a lot of uncertainty, a term that we now hear on a daily basis.

Something which will contribute to this unpredictable condition is that in April next year England will be following Scotland's footsteps in terms of deregulating, "giving businesses, charities and public sector organisations more choice over their water and waste water retail supplier." (Business Water.org). 
A course of actions described as a positive shift as increased competition is likely to improve customer service. 

(to be continued in Part 2)