to tell everyone to return the Tesco Bags For Life

[swg1]

Can we talk about Tesco's Bags For Life because it's pissing me off.

So, everyone agrees that people using and chucking away carrier bags is an issue. Awesome! Government introduces a charge on all plastic bags. Tesco still offers the 5p bags but also 10p bags for life that they promise to replace forever. Good strong bags, nice strong handles. Great!

A while later they quietly get rid of the 5p bags. Fine.

Except now, having clearly realised that most people don't care enough to return a 10p bag, they've changed the design of the Bags For Life. Gone are the nice strong separate handles, instead we have holes in the bag itself which are nowhere near as strong. The plastic itself is much thinner. I've had these die after one use on some occasions. Yes, it's only 10p but it's also one more useless piece of plastic which I'm sure is because they know no-one will call them on their Bags for Life guarantee -- and the amount who do isn't enough to cost them more than they save with cheap nasty bags.

If I can take enough foldable non plastic bags for roughly 3 bags of shopping with me on the bus I'm sure you can find space in your car!

Did no one else use plastic bags as bin bags? I mostly use a canvas bag but I'm thinking i can't be the only one who used them for bathroom bin etc

I use the Sass and Belle foldable shopping bags, they fold into a little pouch that you can just stuff in your handbag or wherever so I’ve always got one if I need it

Crosspost sw but my point still stands.

If people stop buying plastic then Tesco wouldn't make a profit from deliberately changing the quality of the bags.

The idea is they are meant to become the safety net incase we get caught out having forgotten our proper bags

Well, I know mumsnet loves a diagram.

The car is FULL. Again, if I am planning a shop I take the pram out entirely and use a trolley and put hessian bags in (or use husband's bigger car). Eventually the pram will go and I will either cut my children's legs off at the knee or resign myself to buying a bigger car. This is my "be ready for emergency shopping" solution.

And again telling me what I should do won't change the fact that Tesco is selling billions of bags as things that should be reusable while knowing that they will break very quickly.

Ginkypig: Yeah but the whole point is that Tesco are not advertising them as that. That was what the 5p bags were for. The 10p bags were VERY HEAVILY marketed as reusable (the day before 5p bags went live they gave out a ton of good strong 10p bags as a sort of "and now you can use these forever) and are still being sold under the same labelling. They've just quietly dropped the quality.

Thank you for answering my question - never noticed that before.

No one needs to use any sort of plastic bag- just buy a real shopping bag.

IF THEY CARED ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT THEY WOULD BAN PLASTIC BAGS OUTRIGHT.

Sorry for shouting.

It's about money. It's always about money.

It would be so easy to go back to the past. Ban bags. Paper bags only. Reuse supermarket boxes to take shopping home like in the 'olden days'.

What a diagram OP! I can overlook the poor use of scale due to the effort put into it.

My boot contains about 400 bag size for life (I drive a Mum-truck).

quizqueen: Yes, and that sort of voluntary change has worked really well before, hasn't it? I mean it's not like we had to actually ban free bags before people stopped using them.

A small subset of people will buy proper shopping bags, yes. A significant majority however will always opt for the cheapest and most easily available. Telling me to buy a proper bag will not change the fact that the bag redesign will result in a lot more wasted plastic, because they are intentionally marketing lower quality bags as reusable (and making them the easiest possible option by placing only them at the till point).

stiffsink: Husband's car (otherwise known as "the shopping car") has some of those awesome bags that open up in the trolley. They are great and I love them. But if I put them in my car the children would use them to prod each other.

I REALLY need a new car, but I've had my Alto since before PFB and I love the low petrol usage and the lack of car tax. I just somehow forgot that children grow.

I use jute bags, but dh uses bags for life (from all over the place). We lived for a few months in France about 10 years ago and got loads of really good bags for life, which are still in use!

I am awestruck at the wonderful diagram. Is there a MN Diagram of The Year award? I would nominate this one, purely for 'anything placed here will be fought over'.

I took a bag for life back to Tesco and asked for a replacement, the staff didn't know what I was talking about and refused to give me a 'free' bag. They certainly dont call them bags for life anymore.

Are the 10p bags actually bags for life now, or just the new version of a disposable one?

Walkingdeadfangirl, our tesco definitely call them bags for life because I grumbled to the checkout girl about them earlier (while using my trusty ASDA bag for life, which still has proper handles). She agreed they were now awful.

Bottom of this page still says Bag For Life

www.tesco.com/carrier-bags/

All this 'You should be using reusable bags Well yes, but I've forgotten them, or I'm in the wrong car. So I have to buy the plastic ones as I don't need/have room to store any more proper ones. Asda have also stopped doing the 5p bags - now only 10p bags which don't seem any better than the old 5p ones. As for Waitrose- their 10p bags are actually smaller and less strong than the 5p ones 🤨

I will try again then, thanks.

Lol my husband gets embarrassed if we go to one supermarket and I use the bag of another supermarket

Also I love the girly reusable bags Tesco do. Pink and baby blue. 45p. I have about ten of them. They’re pretty.

Lots of people return bags for life for replacement. I reuse mine all the time too, but if you stuff them full of heavy bulky things they won’t last.
Yes you should return and replace if you need to but it’s no conspiracy.

Also you can use boxes

The new Tesco bags are a temporary design, I believe there is a production issue with the red handle bag but they are working on a fix and they will be back at some point.