Sustainability Teaching and Ban on Plastic Bags (PE1535)
I thank the convener and the committee for inviting me here today to give evidence on my petition.
The environment is the most precious thing that we have. It is what supports us and gives us the ability to live, but it is under direct threat from us. My petition seeks to address the two simplest things that we can do to help protect the environment: educate the next generation on the environment and ban all single-use plastic bags. I will address separately the two things that my petition calls for.
The first part of my petition calls on the Scottish Government to make teaching about sustainability and the environment mandatory in secondary schools. Currently, it is not a required part of the curriculum to teach about the environment and sustainability. The decision on what to teach about that topic is left in the hands of local authorities and schools but, in my opinion, that must change, as many schoolchildren go without teaching in this area as a result.
Making the teaching of sustainability and the environment mandatory will help Scotland guarantee an overlooked right of children. Article 29(1)(e) of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child states that education should include
“The development of respect for the natural environment.”
That means that all children should receive teaching on how to care for and protect the environment, which is an issue that is overlooked in many countries, including Scotland.
The word “environment” and words to that effect appear only in social outcomes SOC 4-08a, SOC 4-09a and SOC 4-10a in the experiences and outcomes for the social studies section of curriculum for excellence. For example, SOC 4-08a states:
“I can discuss the sustainability of key natural resources and analyse the possible implications for human activity.”
That experience and outcome is non-specific and is often taught as, “How can we keep using oil for as long as possible?”, which is the complete opposite of what we must do to protect the environment. SOC 4-10a states:
“I can develop my understanding of the interaction between humans and the environment by describing and assessing the impact of human activity on an area.”
That is also non-specific, but it could mean teaching children how they can help stop climate change. However, in my school we decided to study the trans-Alaskan pipeline instead, which is something that we in Scotland cannot change.
We should be teaching children things that they can do on a day-to-day basis to protect the environment. We should be teaching them about things such as walking instead of taking a car, and maintaining good gardens to promote plant and wildlife diversity. They could be taught in relevant subjects such as geography or personal and social education. I believe that they should be taught as part of the broad general education at around the fourth level to ensure that the children are mature enough to understand the issues being taught.
The second part of my petition calls on the Scottish Government to ban all disposable plastic bags in supermarkets and shops. Plastic bags will take around 400 to 1,000 years to degrade and they are produced and used globally at a rate of 500 billion to 1 trillion a year. They are already banned in many countries throughout the developed world, such as Germany and Australia. As recently as 30 September, California joined a line of states in the United States that have banned plastic bags. They are even banned in some of the poorest developing nations in the world, such as Somalia, Botswana and Uganda—countries that have to deal with famine, drought and disease took the time to ban plastic bags.
It is no wonder that countries have banned plastic bags, given their environmental impact. Worldwide, discarded plastic bags kill nearly 100,000 turtles and other species of marine wildlife every year because they are mistaken for food. Their effect is worse when they begin to break down, because that releases their toxins into the soil, and parts that tear off in the wind are swallowed by wildlife ranging from birds to hedgehogs. The use of plastic bags affects not only Scotland but everywhere because, thanks to the wind, plastic bags end up all over the planet. That fact is no more visible than in what is called the great Pacific garbage patch, where rubbish, much of it plastic bags, has ended up in an area that covers about 700,000km2, which is the size of Texas.
The Scottish Government has attempted to take action on plastic bags, but its action does not go far enough. The 5p mandatory charge on carrier bags was a step in the right direction, but it is by no means the final step. Recent data shows that supermarkets have seen a reduction in plastic bag use of around 80 to 90 per cent since the legislation on carrier bags came into effect. If nine tenths of the population can ditch their plastic bags in a matter of weeks, why can the rest not?
When I started this petition three months ago after a nudge from one of my subjects at school, I never thought that it would get this far or get as much support as it has. From conversations that I have had with teachers, friends and families I have heard one consistent message, which is that there is an appetite to protect the environment and for Scotland to set an example to the rest of the world by doing so. I believe that the two points that are outlined in my petition can set us on that path to protecting the environment.
Thank you for your very articulate evidence. You are possibly the youngest petitioner we have had, certainly in the past few years, so congratulations on coming along today.
You have probably partly answered my first question already. However, given that the Scottish Government’s policy of a 5p charge on carrier bags has altered how plastic bags are used, does that fully satisfy the plastic bags element of your petition or do you think that there is still some way to go yet?
Personally, I would say no. In my opinion, people who go into a shop in the morning or evening to grab a pint of milk or something for their dinner, and spend only £5, will not think twice about leaving the house without a bag just for the sake of 5p. They will not get in the car and all of a sudden think, “Oh I’ve left my reusable bag in the house—I will nip in and get it.” They will just pay the 5p charge.
I would have a more substantial charge—perhaps around 20p—that would still go to environment charities to clean up plastic bags and help the environment. Any amount between 10p and 20p would make people think twice, which is what we are looking for. I am not sure that a 5p charge is enough to change people’s attitudes straight away.
Many councils promote recycling and there are different types of bin—I think that I am correct in saying that, in Fife, we now have five types of bin and our recycling rates have gone up to between 70 and 75 per cent. It is very easy to put cardboard and paper in designated bins. Would that not help?
I definitely think that the teaching profession is aware of the topic, given everything that we see in the news on global warming and climate change. I think that it is aware of the issues, but I do not think that it feels as obliged to teach environmental sustainability as much as it would other subjects.
I do not think that it fully satisfies my petition. Ultimately, my goal is to see no more use of plastic bags. A point that I would add to my opening statement is that, although the mandatory 5p charge might be reducing the use of plastic bags, I have not seen any hard evidence that shows that charging for the bags will reduce their environmental impact. To my knowledge, plastic bags are still going to be produced, so they will still end up getting left on the street and will still harm wildlife and the environment.
On the same subject, there is another route that we could go down, although I am not sure of the cost. Biodegradable bags have not, as far as I am aware, entered the spectrum of the argument. Are you aware of any conversations or reports that take a bag’s biodegradability into consideration?
I think that it would help. People might feel that it was easier for them to dispose of paper and cardboard packaging responsibly. At the moment, people think that they can put a plastic bag in a litter bin, from where it will go to landfill and pollute the environment, or they can leave it on their street, where it will pollute the environment. The proposal to use cardboard and paper would also give people two options, one of which would be a better one. They could recycle the material and have it not harm the environment, or they could drop it and have it harm the environment. I think that that suggestion is a good way forward, which would give people better options, but I do not know whether it would solve the problem.
Thank you for that. The second element of your petition is about the teaching of sustainability in schools. We have had a number of petitions about having wider curriculum aspects laid down across Scotland. Have you done any research on other schools and local authorities to find out whether they are teaching sustainability in more depth?
I do not wish to be in conflict with my colleague, but there is a point that I must put to you as a keen environmentalist and someone who is very knowledgeable on the subject. We have come to an argument about trees versus oil. Why would you want to use paper and cardboard when that would destroy the environment and the contribution that trees make to it?
No. That is one alley that we could go down to mitigate the harm from the use of plastic bags and other plastic products. At present, however, there is no completely biodegradable bag that works so fast that it can be seen on the street one day and will have faded into the soil by the following week.
Any such bags that currently exist are not strong enough to carry the heavy items that people buy in shops. A lot of research and scientific work would be needed to come up with a strong plastic bag that biodegrades quickly, if that was a route that we wanted to go down. That would be costly, and such a bag would need to be able to do the job.
Good morning, Alexander. Your petition is commendable and clearly well researched. However, I understand that sustainability and environmental issues are included in the curriculum for excellence through the experiences and outcomes guidance, at least from pre-school to secondary 3. As far as I know, although I stand to be corrected, only religious education is mandatory.
Have you taken the issue to your local education authority and raised it with its education committee?
I do not have any research on other schools across Scotland. I can speak only for my own school, which is fairly good on the environment and is a very active member of the eco-schools initiative. However, I have heard from many teachers that, because teaching sustainability is not mandatory, there are schools throughout the country that do not regard it as being as vital a subject as mathematics, English or foreign languages, so they set it aside and do not give it much time. I cannot remember spending any more than two weeks in second year on the experiences and outcomes that I mentioned in my opening statement. That was practically the entirety of our teaching on the environment for that year.
The straight answer is that I would not want to do so. If we were to replace plastic with paper and cardboard, we would have to cut down many more trees. As recyclable as those materials are, all of a sudden we would be saving one resource to completely drain the other. Deforestation is already a bad problem.
The issue is not just plastic bags, is it? We know what the problem is with plastic bags, but packaging of all sorts can have an impact on the environment. Why have you focused on plastic bags?
No, I have not.
Item 3 is consideration of new petition PE1535, by Alexander Fraser, on teaching sustainability and banning plastic bags. Members have a note by the clerk, the SPICe briefing and the petition. I welcome the petitioner to the meeting and thank him for coming. I invite Mr Fraser to speak for around five minutes, after which I will ask some questions and then pass over to my colleagues.
Thank you. I now pass over to committee colleagues.
They are the biggest menace, and they are more likely—apart from cans of beer on a Saturday night—to be seen lying in the street. You would be more likely to see a plastic bag in the street than to see the packaging that someone bought their meat in. If someone buys a food product at a shop and takes it home to cook, they will put the packaging in the bin because they do not want to litter their home. Plastic bags are more likely to end up on the street as rubbish, and they can contain a lot of other plastics.
I do not want any conflict among committee members on the issue. [Laughter.]
As members have concluded their questions, we come to the summation stage, when we consider the next steps. It is an excellent petition, and I praise Alexander Fraser for giving evidence to us today. It is not easy appearing before a committee. We have all been on the other side of the table, and sometimes it not very pleasant.
There are two issues here. The first is plastic bags. It seems sensible for us to write to the Scottish Government on that, because it has a key role to play. Organisations such as Zero Waste Scotland and the Scottish Retail Consortium will have sensible things to say, too. If the committee agrees, I would like us to write to them. We can discuss their responses at a future meeting. The clerks will keep the petitioner up to date on how things are going.
On sustainability, it would make sense for us to write to the Scottish Government for an update on the work of the learning for sustainability implementation group, and it would probably be useful for us to write to some headteacher organisations to get their views.
Does the committee agree to that course of action?
Members indicated agreement.
Would you consider doing that?
I would consider that. My school and many other schools and nurseries that I know of make an effort with extra-curricular clubs, such as the eco-schools movement clubs, but from my work over the past four years in our eco-schools movement, I know that there is only so much that we can do. We are a group of around 30 trying to teach sustainability and the environment to a school of 1,400 pupils, which is just not physically possible for us to do. Like religion, sustainability and the environment need to be taught much more strongly in the curriculum.
We take an enthusiastic interest in the petition. We will seek information from the organisations that I have mentioned, which we will discuss at a later date. We will keep the petitioner up to date.
I again thank Alexander Fraser for coming along and for his excellent contribution. I will suspend the meeting for a minute to allow him to leave.
11:23 Meeting suspended.
I thank Alexander Fraser for coming along today. He might be the youngest petitioner we have had in front of us, but he is certainly one of the more articulate. I had planned to bring forward a member’s bill on litter when I entered Parliament, but that plan was overtaken by the Government’s action on litter programme, although I do not know how successful that has been. However, is the 5p charge enough to reduce the use of carrier bags?
I agree with you to some extent, but it is not just plastic bags that litter the streets—there is packaging outside takeaway premises and other shops that could be construed as impacting on the environment.
I have one last question. Is it right that, as part of the basics in the curriculum, teachers are trained in environmental sustainability? We also need to secure economic sustainability. The national planning framework has a clear indicator for environmental sustainability. How much awareness is there among the teaching profession about that important topic? I am putting you on the spot as you are at one particular school, but the issue does not affect only your school.
11:15
Okay. As you say, there is only so much that some individuals can do, but it might be an idea if teachers took a leaf out of the Government’s book. It is working towards a policy in which all ministers are climate change ministers, no matter what their portfolio is. Extending that to teachers suggests that all teachers should be climate change teachers, as well, whether they cover English, maths or whatever. That is clearly a way forward that should be considered. Do you think so?
Yes, that is a way forward that should be considered so that all teachers would have the knowledge and, if they felt that they could, they could link that into their subject. That would be good.
Good. Thanks.
Good morning, Alexander. Your petition has been well presented.
In my area, many different voluntary groups or organisations go into high schools and play a huge and active role. How important is it for education systems to give such groups and organisations easier access into schools to take part in the curriculum for excellence?
That is a huge part of the issue. In the eco-schools group in our school, we try to get as many environmental groups in as possible. I do not know how widespread that approach is across all schools, but it needs to be made easier.
As I said earlier, there is only so much that expert groups can do. There are only so many classes and people they can teach in a day. They will not be there for a whole year; they will be in different schools across the day, and they can speak and spread their knowledge to only so many people. They are experts in the field, so they probably know more and can get better information out than teachers can. The approach may need to change in the way that Scottish Government ministers are all becoming climate change ministers.
I have just one other question, on the plastic bags issue. In all the recent beach cleans that I have done, the two commonest things have been polystyrene and plastic bags. Would it be acceptable to replace plastic bags with paper bags and the packaging of many goods that we receive with cardboard? Would that make a huge difference?
I am not sure how big a difference that would make. Certainly from a disposal point of view, paper and cardboard are much easier to recycle, but the problem would be in ensuring that people recycled them. If things were made from paper and cardboard, that would be good, but we could not say that they would be recycled and disposed of responsibly. We could then end up in the same place with carrier bags. Instead of there being plastic on the beaches, there could be cardboard and paper on them.
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