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Marks and Spencer to charge for carrier bags

by Parm Mann on 28 February 2008, 10:10

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These aren't just carrier bags, these are M&S 5p carrier bags

British department store, Marks & Spencer, announced today that it will begin charging its food shoppers 5p for carrier bags.

Though the news might not be welcomed by M&S shoppers, it isn't quite as bad as it seems. The money raised by the sale of each carrier bag will be donated to an environmental charity.

Sir Stuart Rose, chief executive at M&S said the company intends to "make it easy for our customers to do their bit to help the environment."

Carrier bags are an on going concern for environmentalists, and approximately 13 billion are given to UK shoppers on an annual basis. Other supermarket stores, such as Tesco, currently offer reward schemes for shoppers who re-use bags or opt to bring their own.

Speaking to the BBC, Sir Stuart Rose added:

"On top of this, our customers will be raising valuable funds to go to our partner charity, Groundwork, to invest in much-needed green spaces in our neighbourhoods."

"We've got a very ambitious plan, our Plan A as we call it. One of the five pillars of that plan is to send no waste to landfill by 2012."

"That's an extraordinarily hard thing to achieve and we have to move downward in terms of our usage."

As an added incentive, M&S will be offering free "long-lasting bags" for a one month period, beginning early April. The 5p charge per bag for food shoppers will then be implemented on May 6th.



HEXUS Forums :: 18 Comments

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Well, they always were good at window-dressing…

Seriously, how about cutting down on the unnecessary packaging so that less of what they sell goes to landfill.
nichomach
Seriously, how about cutting down on the unnecessary packaging so that less of what they sell goes to landfill.
Exactly what I was going to say.
Me too. Plus, our carrier bags don't get thrown away. We use ours in the kitchen bin and a bin liner. Once full, it gets knotted and throw in the big.
Rather than buy black bin bags/liners.
And we are big on recycling.
Lord Midas;1357428
Me too. Plus, our carrier bags don't get thrown away. We use ours in the kitchen bin and a bin liner. Once full, it gets knotted and throw in the big.
Rather than buy black bin bags/liners.
And we are big on recycling.

Big on recycling, yet you use carrier bags for bin bags? You'd be better off using degradable bin bags as normal carrier bags take hundreds of years to degrade. Much better for the environment :)

I think that all supermarkets should be taxed if they continue using carrier bags. Carrier bags should just be banned, use biodegradable bags.

I also agree on the unnecessary packaging that we are all subjected to. Its starting to be a real joke.
The Scottish Co-op use biodegradable bags :)

I do the same with supermarket carriers. I do try and re-use them, but I often forget and end up with a surplus, so I re-use them as bin liners.

Actually I seem to think the new orange sainsbury's ones are biodegradable, they certainally aren't as strong as the old white ones or the normal Tesco ones.