MoneySaving Poll: Do you agree with the 5p charge for carrier bags?

Nick_C

royl wrote: »

When this scheme was originally discussed, I was under the impression it applied to plastic bags and a 5p charge is acceptable when you consider the environmental damage caused by them.

Why is it environmentally damaging to take a free plastic bag, use it for your shopping, and then re-use it as a bin liner? The environmental damage is caused by sending residual waste to landfill instead of incineration with energy recovery.

royl wrote: »

Now the scheme has been implemented here in Scotland it applies to all bags, not just carrier bags but ALL bags. Paper bags, large, small & carriers. Why paper bags..? They go straight into the recycle bin. You go to buy a birthday card and it's 5p for the little paper bag, order a take away and 5p extra for the carrier. It is now another retail racket and prove to me that the millions of 5p's go to charity.

Blame your Scottish Government for that decision. In England, only plastic bags must be charged for.

SnooksNJ

vchidzey wrote: »

i work in a supermarket, it amazes me how ignorant some people are, they don't bring any bags with them and expect to have given to them, it's not just a few things its whole trolley loads of shopping, so i support charging of carrier bags.
.

That's horrible people ask you for bags. You should go to upper management and suggest all self serve check out so you don't have do deal with so many ignorant customers.
Maybe your supermarket can charge people to use your services like they do at Bank of America.

Hezzawithkids

globetraveller wrote: »

I don't mind the 5p charge but I do object to the 40p charge per home grocery tesco shop. They are saying that an average shop uses 8 bag- but that is because of their packers.i am fed up with half full bags. If I had packed them I would use a lot less bags. I don't want the delivery man ( and in the years i have been using home delivery it has always been a man)spending ages unloading every single item. Why can't they use recycled bags and we hand back the same amount of bags? Isn't that more in the spirit of things?

This is what I'm wondering. I get my shopping delivered and currently don't get charged for bags and I always hand back last week's bags to the driver. Will I get a refund for the number of bags I hand back? Who's going to count them? Also like you say I have no control over the number of bags used for my shop - it's not unusual for a single item to be packed in one bag.

catwoman73

Why is it environmentally damaging to take a free plastic bag, use it for your shopping, and then re-use it as a bin liner?

It's not. It's the people who take new bags every time they shop and never reuse them that's the problem. How hard is it to forget to take reusable bags with you? You don't forget to take your money (and phone and keys) do you?

If the charge makes these people reuse their bags, it will be a good thing. I know several people with a cupboard full of carriers that they simply throw away when the cupboard gets full. There's also the problem of bags flying around in the street that are unsightly and end up harming wildlife or flapping about in trees.

But the bags need to be better quality. The english free bags are so uselessly thin that they often can't be reused. The paid for bags from Spanish supermarkets are much thicker and can be reused for months (we still have one that is used regularly that we bought in May).

jon81uk

Hezzawithkids wrote: »

This is what I'm wondering. I get my shopping delivered and currently don't get charged for bags and I always hand back last week's bags to the driver. Will I get a refund for the number of bags I hand back? Who's going to count them? Also like you say I have no control over the number of bags used for my shop - it's not unusual for a single item to be packed in one bag.

Tesco don't charge for how many bags you actually get, its a fixed 40p, so a single item in a bag won't make you be charged more.
The ones you hand back go for recycling, not re-use so why should you get a refund. Just order your shopping without bags and then unload it directly from the crates. I always did that with Tesco and it was great.

jon81uk

royl wrote: »

When this scheme was originally discussed, I was under the impression it applied to plastic bags and a 5p charge is acceptable when you consider the environmental damage caused by them. Now the scheme has been implemented here in Scotland it applies to all bags, not just carrier bags but ALL bags. Paper bags, large, small & carriers. Why paper bags..? They go straight into the recycle bin. You go to buy a birthday card and it's 5p for the little paper bag, order a take away and 5p extra for the carrier. It is now another retail racket and prove to me that the millions of 5p's go to charity.

Look at the McDonalds bags left on the side of the road, many people still litter even with paper bags.

Kam65

I agree, only if the shops start advertising the charity they are giving the money to on the bag. I don't want to be paying for their advertising

swabaxter

This charge really does work. I generally carry
a rucksack and keep two carrier bags inside.
They have lasted several weeks.

It's changed the behaviour of shop staff who
now give you the option where as many
assumed you required a bag.

Hezzawithkids

jon81uk wrote: »

Tesco don't charge for how many bags you actually get, its a fixed 40p, so a single item in a bag won't make you be charged more.
The ones you hand back go for recycling, not re-use so why should you get a refund. Just order your shopping without bags and then unload it directly from the crates. I always did that with Tesco and it was great.

Thanks. Just had it confirmed from Waitrose that's what they're going to do too - a flat 40p charge if you want it bagged, free if not. I wonder what it's going to do to delivery times if the driver has to wait for everyone to unpack before moving onto the next delivery?

My refund comment was in response to something I saw elsewhere that it might be an option.

Hedgehog99

I've used re-usable fabric bags for years, but there are still times when a plastic bag is best (like someone else said, for meat etc). We were rudely and publicly told off in M&S (note that this is before the charge comes in) for using a "produce bag" (the small, clear bags for fruit & veg) for a pack of chicken breasts - we were told that we wouldn't be able to do that after the charge comes in. We used one because it was the most minimal way to keep the meat & our fabric bags clean.

It's tricky - if they made meat bags free for hygiene reasons, how would they stop people re-using them another time? I pity the cashier in the position of challenging an angry customer.

Would all meat customers be happy to walk down the street with a clearly-labelled meat bag?

I much prefer the carrot rather than the stick method - collecting reward points for bag re-use rather than being penalised.

The other problem others have raised is being accused of not having paid for an item if you bought it from another shop - exacerbated by M&S's new "would you like a receipt?" paper-saving tactic. Yes, I need a receipt so I don't get accused of not having paid, thank you very much.

Shops will lose out on the impulse-shoppers who forget their bags and balk at paying, but maybe that'll give the impulse buyers time time to re-think and be more MSE!

Paper bags are bulkier to transport from the factory, but I believe they should be free. ...Although I have also proved the degradable nature of your average carrier bag by using them to store clothes in the loft (with a window), only to find they disintegrate easily in daylight.

I don't re-use carrier bags as kitchen bin liners because of the holes in the bottom, but I re-use them for more shopping and all the other uses, and finally as a rubbish bag when torn.

On the occasions I need a new plastic bag rather than one of my fabric ones, I'll use a tie-handle bin liner that I can then re-use for rubbish.

And my final cynical note: interesting that the points for bag re-use seemed to end earlier this year (and there's therefore been no incentive not to use the provided bags) and now the charge comes in - is that to show more of a drop in use post-charge than is really the case? Also, some assistants have been practically encouraging customers to take bags now - again to boost the statistics or to altruistically encourage customers to "bank" a stash of free bags while they can?