Or are Boots for charging for paper bags?

[ImABeanBanana]

I'm trying to reuse a tote bag for shopping but was caught out this evening when I went to Boots. When I went to the till I found the bags were paper which is great but I was then charged for it. AIBU or is this CF territory? Wasn't the idea that plastic bags had a charge due to environmental impact? I can't even reuse the bloody thing if I wanted to! I don't mind if it's like Flying Tiger or Sainsbury's and I get a tote but can't understand this.

AIBU?

Single use, bleached paper, paper bags have a huge environmental footprint. I am glad they charge.

However, they should not be charging for a bag that they put personal prescription medication in.

YABU to think they're CF to charge for a paper bag. Paper bags still have a big carbon footprint, the only advantage over plastic is that paper is biodegradable.

Btw, I'm on the continent and we pay around 40 cents for a paper bag, so 5 or even 10p seems ridiculously low. It should be more to discourage people from using them - we should all stop using single use products wherever possible.

Morrison's charge 20p for a paper bag which I do think is expensive as it's pretty small. 5p/10p for a paper bag I don't have a problem with

Yabu.
Id double the charge on all bags tbh

Boots have said, on telly, radio, paper adverts, notices instore, that the money goes to Children in Need

I don't shop in Boots, but hav heard it n the radio and telly news a few tmes over the last couple of weeks.

The bag charge is about single use bags, not what they are made of

Well unless someone is watching me 24 hours a day, how on earth do they know I'm only using the bag once? Because even the thinnest shittiest bag I've ever received in a shop has been reused in some way, even if it's being used as a bin liner in a bathroom bin.

You don’t have to charge for paper bags in England. I believe in Northern Ireland you do. Can’t remrmber wales and Scotland rules.

However, paper bags have a huge env impact evidence to show worse than plastic and realistically will they get reused. So perhaps they are charging to encourage use of bag for life’s which environmentally would make sense. Or being cynical paper bags are more expensive than plastic...

that the money goes to Children in Need

I'd like to think Boots the Chemist might have given these proceeds to a medical charity.

You're paying a tiny amount for a convenience. Take it or leave it, but don't get stroppy about companies trying to do something about reducing wasteful use of resources.

All bags are charged for in Scotland. Even at McDonald's drive through, when there's really no option NOT to take a bag when you're ordering three lots of medium chicken nuggets and chips.

Because paper bags still cost trees. They should be charged for. We'll soon get into the habit of remembering our own bags just like almost all of Europe does.

People do get wound up about bags. I volunteer in a large charity shop and the chain has changed policies over the years - first it was 5p for a bag, then 10p, than a few months ago they announced they were doing away with bags altogether. We've used up most of the stock we had so now just don't have any to sell.

Most people have bags with them, but you get the odd person who gets exceptionally huffy when you tell then you just don't have a single use plastic bag to sell them.

You can pass your own bag to McDonald's staff and they'll load it for you. I saw a man passing a small insulated bag to them from his car, which I thought was a brilliant idea.

My shop uses paper bags and we don't charge.

I don't see an issue with other shops charging though - the idea is to encourage people to bring reusable bags, it shouldn't have anything to do with the material.

That probably would have been a better idea Shatners but can you imagine the frantic Letters to Editir comapaining about the choice, or the charities ignored?

can you imagine the frantic Letters to Editir comapaining about the choice, or the charities ignored?

Maybe if/when they roll it out everywhere they could do the token thing like - forget which, is it Waitrose? - does, where you can choose between 3 charities, often local.

I think the English rules on bags are a bit of a fudge, tbh. Only plastic bags, only from shops with more than X number of employees... it's a bit half and half. At least in Scotland it's very clear, if you want a bag you pay.

Maybe we ought to write it up and send it in , as a formal presentation

Curious Yes, but then a lot of people don't like Children in Need, so whatever way you go some people won't be happy. It just seems to me that, as a Chemist (I know they sell other stuff but...) it would make business sense to align with a medical charity. If choosing one local to each store is too time consuming, maybe change the national medical charity that benefits annually.

Order online?

I have no idea why people think that this is a better idea. I did an order from Superdrug, I now have a box, 2 bits of bubble wrap, and some paper packing.

What about the very small paper bags they put your prescription in? I got an inhaler prescription this week from Boots and they package all items in little paper bags. And don't charge for them, unlike all other bags in Scotland.

Primark have never charged for theirs and come to think of it, plenty of stores use paper bags and don’t charge.

Morrisons charge for their paper bags too and I think it’s majorly cheeky. I’d never use one, they’re terrible.

I think the paper prescription bag is used like an envelope for organisation (keep I've person's items together, less chance of items going missing) and privacy. It's probably a requirement to keep people's medication out of view.

I did an order from Superdrug, I now have a box, 2 bits of bubble wrap, and some paper packing.

Boots do the same when you order something click and collect. I ordered a bubble bath and babygrow click and collect once. She brought out a ginormous box filled with bubble wrap . Not the first time it happened either.

When I was a kid you paid for bags. We used to put shopping in the piles of cardboard boxes left at the end of the check outs

Yes, I remember that too. Shops used to charge sixpence for a carrier bag (45p in today's money, allowing for inflation). Everyone used to own shopping bags and would never go shopping without them.

My mum had a shopping trolley - a box-shaped bag on a wheeled frame - which saved her arms and back from the strain of lugging bags of shopping the half-mile back to our house.

When we went at weekends and dad could drive us there (mum didn't drive) we did a "big shop" and packed it into cardboard boxes to carry it to the car. As pointed out in the quote above, supermarkets recycled packing boxes by making them available for customers to use.