Sainsbury's ban disposable bags 19 Apr 07
Albeit for one day only
A BBC Report states that Sainsbury’s are scrapping disposable plastic bags, for one day, in favour of their recycled ‘Bags for Life’ in an attempt to encourage shoppers to reuse their bags rather than taking new ones on every shopping trip.
The recycled bags have been available for some time, normally at a cost of 10p per bag, but more will be given out on this one day than would be sold in just under two years. However, does this fact alone not suggest that the scheme may be of little or no interest to the vast majority of shoppers?
Greater steps to deal with the plastic bag problem have been taken in the Republic of Ireland where a plastic bag tax (currently 15c per bag, but rising this summer) has reduced the number used per head from 328 to just 21 in under five years.
We recently switched over to reusable bags (rather than reusing ‘normal’ plastic bags, which kept breaking) that we bought for just 40p each, over a number of weekly shops. They’re much sturdier than plastic bags, can hold a lot more (our weekly shop fits into just 2 or 3 of them) and, with better, woven handles, they don’t cut your hands off if you’ve overloaded on tin cans.
Posted by Nev in Going Green , Shopping with tags eco-friendly, green, reuse
