to think a charge for carrier bags is counterproductive

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Parliament are apparently going to approve a 5p charge for plastic bags.
Surely everyone reuses them as bin liners and if they werent getting the carrier bags would buy proper binliners instead which are made of thicker plastic so even more environmentally unsound.

starlight they didn't charge for bags used for supermarket home delivery for some reason but recently they've started adding a charge if you choose to have them delivered with bags. I'm not sure how it's worked out but I think it's calculated based on how much you've spent rather than how many bags they actually use.

Maybe the charge will make shopping in M&S more pleasant. I hate going there if I have forgotten my "for life" bags at home.

The check out assistant will see my mountain of shopping, and take out ONE bag from under the tills. I fill it. They look at me, and wait for me to ask for one more. Then they go "oh, you need one more do you" Then they sigh melodramatically. This goes on until I have filled 6-7 shopping bags, and by the time I get to pay I am feeling really irritated. It is so unnecessary. It is only in Marks & Spencer I have encountered this attitude.. I really dont see the need in bullying your customers over carrier bags. It is like "ner ner, i have something you want, I control the bags, ner ner, you cant have any unless you plead with me"

And even when I have tried to counter act this by saying "I forgot my "for life" bags, they STILL keep trying to restrict bags giving me one at the time, and sighing each time they reach under the tills for some.

I am shopping in M&S as little as possible, and more in Waitrose, simply because they have this silly controlling attitude over bags.

i use fabric bags when shopping but still buy bin bags. if i don't tie them up properly they stink and attract flies in the summer especially, tons of flies in the house ain't healthy so i will continue to use bin bags. i wish the council would collect weekly in the summer.

The tesco delivery driver told me their bio degradable bags turn to confetti in 6 months. So I don't keep them now. After a shower of bag confetti I am wary of them.

I give all my plastic bags to my DF. Who knows what he gets up to with them, he goes through loads and keeps asking for more.

I think a really important point is being missed here and that is the effect on the environment of all the plastic bags and plastic waste in general. There is a well documented huge 'island' in the Pacific Ocean, info about it can be found here-en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch
I have been using my own bags for supermarket shopping for years as I want to reduce my impact on contributing to the ever growing plastic waste mountain, it doesn't go away, it ends up in food chains and harming lots of wildlife.
Charging for plastic bags will reduce their usage and that can on,y be a good thing, if it means it costs me a bit of money then thatis preferable to the alternative.

If you use a carrier bag to line a bin it is likely to leak.
Also, it only gets used twice, maximum.
If you use a reusable shopping bag it will be used dozens of times. So even with the purchase of.binliners the use of disposable plastic is reduced.
They'll need to improve the quality though. Lidl bags and m&s bags are super. But sainsbury and tesco are too flimsy for any kind of reusing.

My compromise position is that when we go to the supermarket we use bags for life. Our veggies are from a veggie box or the garden so I only have the occasional paper bag. Meat is from a farm shop which uses minimal packaging.

I do accept bags from clothes shopping and sometimes a shop will use one even if I say no thanks or it will be pouring and I haven't got my rucksack. Those bags go into lining my bin. Some how we have the perfect balance. Oozier things go into bread bags or other food packaging first.

If we had weekly bin collections then maybe rubbish wouldn't need to be wrapped so well?

But Amanda surely the bin bags only get used once?

Yabu.

Having holidays on the continent/ shopping at aldi you realise taking your own bags is easier. They are bigger and stronger. Less hassle actually.

We don't actually use small bin liner - shock horror but umm wash the bins if they are manky!

In my house we have bins with liners and bins without.
The liner bins are those posh ones, can't remember the name but carriers don't fit. They're used for mucky rubbish.
The non liner ones are more for dry waste IYSWIM. Before I got into reducing my plastic shit I would line the smaller bins with carriers. Now I use reusable bags I don't do that. It's not necessary. Sooverall the throwing away of plastic is reduced.

We reuse them to wrap homemade bread and then stick rubbish in them.

I take reusable bags most of the time and just get carriers when the draw is getting empty.

I remember when this came out in Ireland and plastic consumption went up massively as people had to buy bags for stuff instead of use the carrier bags. I don't know if that's levelled out now it's been running a while. Whilst I think its a good thing, it will be a pain when you unexpectedly stop somewhere and pick something up.

Put food scraps in the compost or food waste bin (if your council has this service), recycling rinsed and put in the recycling bin. Non recycling gets rinsed and put in the non recycling bin. This latter category shouldn't actually be a huge amount unless you have a shite council that doesn't do much recycling. There doesn't need to be a huge amount of oozy, stinky stuff in your bin. We don't use bin liners. Bin gets emptied into the wheelie bin every 2-3 days. Quick squirt of bleach and rinse out into the drain outside (takes 2 mins) to stop any nasty whiffs. Job done.

Might not work for everyone of course - quite specific to our situ and bin collections - but works for us, and no need to use separate bin liners. We do get carrier bags sometimes, but not routinely. We don't need them.

Yabu. Usage has gone down 80% in Wales and NI. English supermarkets give out 7billion bags a year - all if which will take at least 500 years to decompose. (Possibly never in a landfill site - even the biodegradable ones)
All the plastic ever made is still hanging around the planet somewhere unless its been burned. The oceans are full of it, as litter it's harmful to wildlife. Is our shopping convenience really that important?

I never use carrier bags as bin bags, I use bin bags in my big bin and my bathroom bins have those removable buckets that I wash after emptying.

It baffles me that people think using carrier bin liners is a fantastic money saving, environmentally friendly thing to do.

I live in Wales and you just get used to taking reusable bags, or in DH's case you never have a bag, won't pay for a bag and wander round with great armfuls of shopping brandishing a receipt between your teeth so nobody suspects you are stealing anything.

Its a bit of a distraction though - since the waste produced by disposable bags (often reused by the individual) pales in comparison with the plastics, card from our current food packaging from supermarkets

perhaps we should tackle that culture?

yy becca... we don't have "oozy" rubbish in our bin either - so a crappy tesco carrier works really well as a liner - and they disintegrate in 6 months too...

We do have a waste food caddy collection weekly so have no food waste in the bin... and glass/tins/paper/card are collected.... and our local recycling centre takes oil/plastic packaging/foil/textiles and tetra paks too.. not much actual rubbish to go in the bin any more, so won't need as many free plastic bags.... thankfully

Was just coming on to say that as well. Plastic packaging is dreadful! The packaged fruit and veg in a supermarket makes my eyes water.

Regarding fresh meat, supermarkets used to pack your fresh meat into thin white plastic bags a few years ago incase of contamination. I wonder when they stopped that?

looks like some people here need some basic life lessons in some not very difficult things.

clothes shopping; take a cloth bag, a suit carrier if you are buying something big or a rucksack that you don't use for food. Put clothes in that. Clothing shopping should be rare anyway except for growing kids; and their clothes can be folded in a shopping bag.

food shopping; take bags with you, either cloth bags or 'bags for life'. Only meat needs wrapping and it comes in wrappings. Fruit and veg should be bought loose if at all possible.

reduce the number of bins in your house. A small one in the bathroom and one in the kitchen is enough, plus a food scraps bin (peelings and teabags only, otherwise you are wasting food) and a place for recycling which is where paper goes. So that's the kitchen bin liner, the bathroom bin liner and that's it.

doesn't seem that difficult to me. Which is probably why my landfill bin is under half-full each fortnight at most.

in short - BUY LESS. USE LESS.

oh, and if you have dog excrement to dispose of, you can afford the dog so you can afford the bags. And do take them home rather than tying them to a tree, eh?

I don't think it's a distraction - it's part of a wider problem, yes, but not being able to solve every part of it at once doesn't mean we shouldn't do anything surely? An 80% reduction here would mean 5.6 billion fewer carrier bags a year - that's a lot of plastic.
Card is recyclable, as is a lot of the plastic packaging from food - still better not to have it all, but there are industry agreements to try and reduce packaging and "lightweight" it - things like all the concentrated washing liquids and squashes now - half the number of bottles for the same end product. Sadly these agreements are still voluntary, they should be compulsory IMO.

I have proved that some plastic bags will disintegrate after 8 years - wrong choice of wrapping for storage...

it is still waste, though.

"It pisses me off that you have to pay for a plastic bag at m&S and the bags advertise m&S fresh fish! I'm a vegan. I don't want to be carrying a bag advertising fish. I especially don't want to pay for the privilege. I don't mind paying for a bag but they should be logo (and advert) free."

1. You don't have to pay for a plastic bag, you can take your own. The 5p charge was introduced six years ago to encourage customers to do just that.

1. It doesn't advertise fresh fish, it 'advertises' (informs) you that "all of the profit from your 5p contribution helps to protect and save our precious sea life, oceans and beaches". Also, that the 1.5p profit is split 40% to WWF-UK, 40% to the Marine Conservation Society and the remainder supporting education projects to protect marine environments.

They do disintegrate - but into tiny pieces that don't biodegrade, but hang around - that's what they find in the guts of fish, the seas are full of micro particles of plastic that are probably making their way up the food chain.

Have also had the carrier bag confetti explosion, I though I had mice!

For the PP that said about raw meat, you generally still get free smaller bags when you buy something that might leak or hot food etc.

I tend to keep a plastic bag inside my bag for life anyway in case i end up with clothes, makeup, food etc in one bag

I used to have a fight regularly in M & S when they tried to charge me 5p for a carrier bag in the food department, then insisted I had to have a carrier bag, free, large, thick plastic, for a £3 T-shirt, to show I hadn't shop-lifted it. Problem solved: I don't shop in M & S any more, (in common with a lot of people, I think).
More seriously, I wish the Govt. would do something about the long swathes of plastic that have blown off lorries and are wrapped around trees and hedges at the roadside; far more environmentally dangerous.