Lack of publicity over England's shops charging 5p a bag

SpammyTheSpammer

My mum used to take bags with her when she went shopping. Nothing was wrapped, vegetables etc from stalls were just poured into your bag.....

enfield_freddy

the last couple of posters , umm , the free bags are "use once type" , classed upto recently as "use once and throw away" , if you want a strong bag , you pay for it!

Azari

enfield_freddy wrote: »

the last couple of posters , umm , the free bags are "use once type" , classed upto recently as "use once and throw away" , if you want a strong bag , you pay for it!

Well, someone mentioned Morrisons, and I can also point out the Sommerfield, before their demise, were issuing strong (free) bags that could be used a great many times.

I agree with the sentiment that, now we are being encouraged to recycle bags (and pay for them), they should upgrade the bags slightly - to the extra strong types tried by Sommerfield and Morrisons. (They are nowhere near as thick as the plastic 'bag for life' types but seem to be made of a material that is just as strong.)

I always double up when recycling bags to avoid problems with them splitting.

PennyForThem_2

Goodness - what a fuss. in Wales bag charge has been operating for years.

I recommend buying a hessian bag or 3. These are strong and last like - years! The supermarkets here have been innovative with the design - in Asda they sell really nice charity hessian bags which are for a limited time and really nice designs on the outside bag area.

Yes they can cost 1.50 but they are stronger and nicer than the 0.15p bag for life. In England the supermarkets may discount as they did at first in Wales so snap the hessian bags up!

Just keep in back of car - I also use for storage too.

Bogof_Babe

PennyForThem wrote: »

Goodness - what a fuss. in Wales bag charge has been operating for years.

I recommend buying a hessian bag or 3. These are strong and last like - years! The supermarkets here have been innovative with the design - in Asda they sell really nice charity hessian bags which are for a limited time and really nice designs on the outside bag area.

Yes they can cost 1.50 but they are stronger and nicer than the 0.15p bag for life. In England the supermarkets may discount as they did at first in Wales so snap the hessian bags up!

Just keep in back of car - I also use for storage too.

This assumes everyone drives to do their shopping!

teddysmum

peachyprice wrote: »

Surely if you've got any sense you'll spend the extra 5p on a bag for life and re-use it dozens of times?

You missed my point.


There is no need to buy bags for life if you have 'proper' shopping bags , but the excuse for the charge is supposedly to reduce the amount of plastic used, but you will have to replace carrier bags with pedal bin and/or outside bin liners which are ....plastic.

JReacher1

teddysmum wrote: »

You missed my point.


There is no need to buy bags for life if you have 'proper' shopping bags , but the excuse for the charge is supposedly to reduce the amount of plastic used, but you will have to replace carrier bags with pedal bin and/or outside bin liners which are ....plastic.

I think the charge has been proved to considerabley reduce the amount of plastic used in both Scotland and Wales.

Quite a lot of people won't use carrier bags as bin liners. They'll use proper bin liners.

barmonkey

JReacher1 wrote: »

Quite a lot of people won't use carrier bags as bin liners. They'll use proper bin liners.

So, using 2 bags instead of one

CKhalvashi

Bogof_Babe wrote: »

This assumes everyone drives to do their shopping!

However if I know I'm going shopping (I've been known to walk to Waitrose instead of driving if I don't need that much), then I'll take the bags with me.

Azari

JReacher1 wrote: »

Quite a lot of people won't use carrier bags as bin liners. They'll use proper bin liners.

Which, as teddysmum pointed out, are plastic. Hence, no plastic is saved.

I think that at the moment we have a situation where a percentage of bags are reused - either for shopping or waste containment, but a much larger percentage are dumped after a single use.

Once charging is introduced the proportion of bags dumped without reuse will drop dramatically.

The main downside is for people who did reuse a lot of them, once.