Saving the planet, one carrier bag at a time!

“Would you like a bag?”
Looking down at your newly purchased sandwich and bag of crisp, you know you don’t need a bag, but it’s free and better than smelling your backpack out with the aroma of soggy bread and warm tuna.

“Er…Yes please…Cheers”.

Packing your bag you don’t feel an ounce of shame, everyone does it. What difference is one bag going to make? Anyway, when the landfills eventually engulf cities whole, you won’t be here.

Fast forward one year, and your thinking is slightly different.

“Would you like a bag?”
“No thanks, I’m alright” you say as you try to hide the pride on your face whilst pulling out your ‘bag for life’ you finally remembered to bring. The shop is full of people all thinking the same thing, yet no one seems to say it, in fear of being branded a stingy conservative, ‘5p for a bit of plastic, a bit extortionate don’t you think?’.

Of course, I’m talking about the ever-so-dreaded five penny bag charge brought in on the October 5 this year which was brought in to reduce the amount of carrier bags we use unnecessarily to decrease the amount of plastic waste that ends up in landfill sites around England.

English public used a staggering 7.64 billion carrier bags in 2014

And rightly so – something needed to be done. According to the Telegraph, the English public used a staggering 7.64 billion carrier bags in 2014, which works out at around 140 per person. That’s 61,000 tonnes of plastic carrier bags a year. Looking at these statistics, people were obviously needlessly using plastic bags – something that I myself used to do before the charge came in.

Despite headlines such as the Daily Mail’s ‘Plastic bags chaos looms’, the transition on the 5 October was relatively smooth (apart from some bargain hunters who showed how the ‘solution’ to this problem was to steal a £1 supermarket trolley). And we have already started to see results. The supermarket Tesco announced that 78% less bags had been used in October than had been in the previous charge-free month of September. The supermarket chain has also stated that it will be giving its proceeds from the bag charge to environmental improvement charities, which, if Tesco keeps on target this year, will amount to £30 million over the year. The bag charge has therefore exceeded expectations, and instead of simply reducing plastic waste, it is also proving to have a positive effect on the amount of donations charities are being given.

in the Welsh branches of Asda, £650,000 had been donated to ‘Community Foundation Wales’

Despite the fact that many stores have not yet decided which charity they wish to support, by looking at where the stores have given their money in Scotland and Wales we can roughly guess where the money could end up. According to the Guardian, the Marks & Spencer branches in Scotland have given over £80,000 to the ‘Marine Conservation Society’ and over £37,000 to a several local charities, along with other numerous donations.

Similarly, in the Welsh branches of Asda, £650,000 had been donated to ‘Community Foundation Wales’, which according to their website, awards ‘grants to projects that make a sustainable impact on local needs’.

So, despite the controversy of the plastic bag charge, how can anyone argue that the pros don’t massively out-weight the cons? Sure, you might have to juggle your shopping back to your car, or you may even have to pay that dreaded 5p charge. But bare this in mind: if you choose to buy a bag, you can be confident that that 5p will (hopefully) be heading to a charity, and if you remember to bring your own (finally!), you can also be assured that you are doing your bit to help to reduce plastic waste in our environment.