UK plastic bag charge hailed as a huge success

Marks & Spencers' 5p charge on carrier bags has seen an 80% reduction in their use in the first year

Hilary Osborne, guardian.co.uk 1 May 09;

Jim Royle of BBC's The Royle Family was scandalised at the thought of paying 5p for a carrier bag, but the introduction of charges for single-use bags has been a huge success, according to figures from high street retailers.

They reveal that high profile campaigns and fashion-statement alternatives to plastic, combined with charges and incentives such as Green loyalty points have helped some retailers cut bag use by as much as 85%.

Since launching a 5p charge for food bags last May as part of its Plan A scheme to reduce waste, Marks & Spencers says the number of bags taken to cart posh ready meals home has fallen by 80%, from 460m bags a year to 80m. The National Trust, which introduced a charge on 1 May last year in its shops and garden centres, has managed to slash plastic bag usage by 85%, or 1m bags a year. It said just 5% of its customers were now taking the disposable option.

"We are really pleased at how quickly customers have reacted and adapted their shopping habits by investing in durable alternatives in which to carry their purchases," said the National Trust's Stuart Richards, adding that in the trust's shops, sales of reusable jute bags have soared as plastic bag use has fallen away.

Marks & Spencer has also managed to persuade its customers to remember to take along their own bags when they hit the shops. "The main driver for the reduction is people bringing in an alternative bag, either a plastic bag for life or cloth bag with them when they shop with us and we have encouraged them to do so through regular bag for life giveaways," a spokeswoman said.

M&S is among 22 high street names that signed up to a target of reducing the environmental impact of bag use by 25% by the end of last year. They managed to exceed the target, cutting waste by 40%, and are now working towards halving bag use from 2006 levels by the end of May. While some opted to charge for bags, others went for a carrot rather than a stick.

Retailers who have incentivised customers to reuse bags have also seen success. Tesco, which offers one Green point to its clubcard customers for every bag they reuse, says it has cut bag use by 50% since it launched the scheme in August 2006, saving 3bn bags in the process. In the past year alone, 1.8bn bags have been saved. Sainsbury's, which has also offered extra loyalty points to customers, will not reveal how many bags it has saved, but says experiments such as sending text messages to customers to remind them to bring a bag when they go shopping had proved successful.

Figures from the Waste & Resources Action Programme show the total number of bags in circulation fell from 13.4bn in 2006 to 9.9bn last year, however that still represents 400 per household. The Department for the Environment Food and Rural Affairs recently launched the "get a bag habit" campaign to remind people to reuse bags rather than hoarding them in drawers and under the sink. It estimates the voluntary targets set by retailers will result in a reduction of around 5bn bags a year in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and will eventually save 130,000 tonnes of CO2 – equivalent to taking 41,000 cars off the road each year.