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Marks & Spencer has announced that it plans to start charging 5p for plastic bags in 33 more stores across the UK, and may roll the scheme out nationwide. The move is part of a larger trial after the company tried charging for bags in Northern Ireland.
M&S found that there was a 66% drop in the number of bags used, which shows just how easy it is to motivate people to be green -- if you use a stick rather that a carrot. The small charge doesn't really inconvenience people all that much, but it does seem to be an effective reminder to take your own, reusable bag to the supermarket.
After only 16 weeks of charging for bags, three quarters of shoppers had started to use reusable bags. The remaining people kept donating their 5ps, which added up to £40,000 which M&S kindly donated to Groundwork Northern Ireland, who will spend the cash on environmental projects.
The trial will be coming to a supermarket near you if you live in Dorset, Somerset, Gloucestershire, Devon or Cornwall, and will be starting in mid-January. Under the scheme, each customer buying food will get one free reusable bag for a limited period, after which it will rise to 10p. Regular customers should therefore never have to pay for a bag as long as they remember to come prepared. As well as this, all future carrier bags will be created from 100 per cent recycled waste.
"We knew that M&S had to make bold decisions to try and encourage customers to change their behaviour. Our initial trial in Northern Ireland has shown us that introducing charging does make customers think twice about the number of bags they use," says Stuart Rose, M&S chief executive.
Liz Goodwin, chief executive of WRAP -- the organisation behind the 'Love Food, Hate Waste' campaign -- made the following comment on the initiative: "Charging is one way of tackling the environmental impact of plastic bags, but WRAP also believes that more use of recycled content in carrier bags, use of lighter weight material and bags for life would make a huge difference."
Schemes like this have been proven to work, but can have a negative impact for shops because customers can be put off by having to pay for bags. So this is a really bold and brave move for M&S -- hopefully other supermarkets will follow their lead, because the savings in waste and carbon emissions from plastic production are enormous and virtually instantaneous.
07 November 2007 01:50pm
I saw Stuart Rose on TV the other day and he is a very charismatic bloke which I think helps M&S's image for going green. However instore I still see a lot of packaging and it'll be interesting to see how they get rid of bags in their Simply Food outlets catering for the lunchtime market.
07 November 2007 02:30pm
A lot of the time when I buy lunch I get offered a carrier bag by default, even if I've only bought one item.
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