ANY proposals for an environmental tax on carrier bags could see jobs lost.

That is the view of Basil Tucker, managing director of Cardinal Packaging in Ebbw Vale, who added "businesses would be wrecked for no environmentally sound reason" if a tax was brought in.

Reducing litter and waste are key elements of the waste strategy in Wales and the UK government has been enco-uraged to look carefully at the Irish experience with a view to introducing a parallel measure in the UK. The measures in Ireland have included a tax on carrier bags.

Cardinal Packaging, based on Rassau Industrial Estate has a turnover of £6 - £7 million a year. It produces between 300,000 and 500,000 carrier bags a day.

Mr Tucker said much of what the company makes goes abroad and some is used in food packaging. Most carrier bags are reused either for shopping purposes or as bin liners. He added: "What they (the government) are saying is they want to reduce the amount of plastic. But carrier bags only use about one per cent of plastic. They are ignoring other items."

Mr Tucker said his firm employs 85 people and any tax proposal threatens jobs. He said: "For Ebbw Vale, if they did that to us, we would probably be down to 10 - 15 staff. The sensible thing would be not to put a tax on carrier bags and ask stores to put a charge on them."

The Carrier Bag Cons-ortium, set up to defend the industry, says spending public money on finding alternatives to the carrier bag is based on a misunderstanding of the science of environmental impacts and diverts public attention from the real causes of municipal waste and macro environmental problems.

A spokesman said: "The people of Wales should know that the supermarket carrier bag represents far less than one per cent of litter on the streets and the waste in our landfill sites.

"Any attempt to find alternatives will therefore make no difference to our litter problem nor will it affect the amount of waste going to landfill.

"In fact, if such proposals encourage heavier alternatives which need more energy and valuable resources during manufacture, transportation and storage, the chances are the environment will be worse off."

* Pictured: Basil Tucker