People keep sharing this picture on Facebook, and it REALLY FRIGGING ANNOYS ME how wrong it is:
I also saw a letter in the paper (probably the Express) saying what a negative effect the "bag tax" would have on high street retailers such as clothes shops, as they would have no way of carrying their purchases. Ummmmm... they could just pay 5p for a bag?
On a related note, some people can't understand why I get annoyed when people throw away bags for life because they're "old and tatty". The whole point of a bag for life- that when it gets old and tatty you take it back to the shop and they recycle it and give you a new one- seems to have passed the majority of people by. And no matter how many times I tell people, they still don't get it, and a few weeks down the line they're using them as bin liners again (even if they have plenty of "normal" carrier bags).
Everywhere I've visited with self-service checkouts locally (Tesco, Sainsbury's, Morrisons, M&S, and WHSmith) has the bags loaded, as usual, onto the hangers.
The best 5p bag I've bought is at my local Spar - very durable, and large too.
james2001 wrote:On a non-logo/advertising note, can I rant about the carrier bag kerfuffle? Just spent about 5 minutes at the "express" checkout in Asda trying to attract the attention of the woman with the carrier bags. It's so annoying, why do Asda do it this way? Tesco & Sainsbury's (at least here) still have the carrier bags on the checkouts, do Asda somehow not trust us to only take the bags we've paid for? Surely they have enough on their plates with taking tags off things, helping old ladies and "unexpected items in bagging area" than dashing around with bags too... obviously Asda would rather have the messing around than risk people taking a couple of extra bags.
No doubt it's not the reason but making it annoying to get a new bag like this could encourage people to remember to reuse their bags.
What is the position if a retailer fails to charge for a bag?
In the past week or so I've been given four bags without charge. In one case it was at a petrol station and it might be that it is a franchise and therefore falls below the 250 employee limit. In the other case it was a national retailer famous for their Boxing Day sales that people get up stupidly early for.
Re: The 5p charge being ineffective as people will just pay it, certainly from my own experiences in the first few months this is not the case. From standing in queues people seem incredibly reluctant to part with 5p, and have been producing their own carrier bags from all sorts of nooks and crannies in order to avoid spending those precious few pennies. And those who don't have bags (at least certainly in Tesco Express and the like), will scoop up their goods and try to juggle them/stuff bits into as many pockets as possible to avoid being defeated by the charge. From my own experience, the scheme would therefore seem to be quite the success, with even little corner shops charging the 5p (despite not being required to by law) because people assume they have to pay it now.
As for self-serve carrier bag locations, both Tesco and Sainsbury's near here have been keeping their bags close to the tills - I think Tesco keeps them on the hooks, whilst Sainsbury's have taken the hooks out and instead put the bags in a box underneath the self-serves. No idea on Asda or Morrisons.
