Give Away Carrier Bags

There is a lot of press at the moment about polythene bags and their damaging the environment, coupled with a strong drive in areas to implement a carrier bag tax on polythene bags.

My contention is this, that Supermarkets spend millions on polythene carrier bags, the vest carrier kind in high density polythene, and most customers would complain how cheap and nasty they are anyway, and then they charge you for the bags for life which as a country we probably should be using instead. This consists of cotton carriers or non woven carrier bags. Would it not ultimately be more economic to give away the bags for life to each customer for a period of time, then charge for better quality polythene carriers to those who can’t be bothered to reuse or remember to bring them shopping with them. This then means that the overall usage of polythene carriers would reduce massively, far more than by the imposing of a carrier bag tax. This would do more for everyone than a meaningless bag tax.

This post isn’t meant to answer any questions but it is meant to ask questions and promote thinking amongst consumers and supermarkets.