Is it just me or is charging 50p for a paper bag at M&S food outrageous?

[sequin2000]

I know I should have brought a bag and I usually do. If the option was a plastic bag I would have struggled with the shopping in my arms to the car, but I thought as it was paper it wasn't so bad. What I didn't expect was to be charged 50p. M&S say the bag can be used 100 times. Is there anyone out there who has reused an M&S paper bag? AIBU in thinking most people don't realise they cost 50p, that the assistants should make this clear and that M&S are profiting from this government policy?

If you’re hoping I felt patronised by your comment then sorry to disappoint but you’ve been unsuccessful.
Pp was moaning about being penalised for being forgetful, when the entire point of the penalty is to make it unpalatable for people to not reuse their own bags. I provided suggestions for how to remember bags and avoid the forgetfulness penalty.
Clearly some people don’t want to be helped and would rather moan about having to pay at the same time as admitting they keep forgetting and don’t do anything to change that fact.

If you don't want the bags on offer, don't buy them. They can offer whatever bags they want to, at whatever price they like. Up to you if you want one or not. Just the same as anything else they sell.
I personally think the M&S paper bags are great. We've had one for ages, it serves as our "posh" bag, when a Tescos one just won't do. Holds several bottles of wine just fine.

Were bags given away for free or was the cost of bags aggregated into the price of the groceries you bought? Surely giving customers a choice of whether to pay for a bag is better than effectively forcing them through marginally higher products?

I don’t buy them. In M&S I just take them if I don’t have my own. Never pay for them. You can’t fold them up to keep in your handbag so their reuse value is limited, and there’s no way I’d put anything heavy or breakable in one, especially if it’s raining. They’re single use as far as I’m concerned. And I’m not bothered about the social status of carrier bags 🤣🤣🤣.

So proud of theft and waste. Nice. Good for you.

I can see your cat’s bum face from here 🤣🤣🤣.

Not proud, more annoyed at the crap bags on offer. And my re-use and recycling is stellar, thanks, and has been for decades.

The whole point is they want you to take your own.

The first rule of waste reduction is prevention. So they are deliberately discouraging you from using their bags.

They have very much engaged brain.

Wait, so you just take them? So you steal them? If you think the strawberries / toothpaste / chicken is too much, do you just take those too? Or is that somehow different because you consider the bags are rubbish, single use and used to be free? Really?

It's obviously not stellar if you're having to steal bags and then treating as single use...

Shops - "sustainability initiative - how can we make money from it?"

It certainly is. You really think you know me? I can assure you that you don’t.

Cheerio now! Teasing you is wearing a little thin.

I bought several couregettes in Tesco recently. I scan as I shop, so put them on the scales and get a sticker. I looked around for a bag to put them in together. Nope, just a reusable one that costs 30p. It went home with me and will get forgotten about.

Lidl supplies bags for loose produce. Compostable ones. I am not sure why Tesco can't do the same.

People - "why can't we get free stuff from shops? Waaah waah waah!"

Why do you need a bag for your courgettes? You weigh them and put them - loose - in your bag for life.

I use them to post my vinted clothes in.

I do that. But recently I keep having random checks, and I worry about them finding a courgette wild in my bag with no sticker.

They are a complete pain in the arse to store

Actually, as I keep saying, I'm happy to be penalised for being forgetful. What I object to is not being told the charge (which I think is excessive and M&S are profiteering). If they charged £5 and donated it to an environmental charity I wouldn't have an issue.

Sure. I’m not against that in principle. Most of the time I do bring my own, but sometimes I nip into a shop spontaneously. I can’t plan every second of my life with military precision and wouldn’t want to, how dull would that be.

I just want the bag I pay for to be fit for purpose. Paper bags in the UK climate are about as useful as a chocolate teapot. That’s the thinking I want the brain to engage in. Not for them to do a virtue-signalling box-ticking exercise that doesn’t add anything useful. I bet the amount of paper bags that only get used once because they get too wet and disintegrate really damages their eco credentials if only they were to study it (they won’t).

This was in relation to a different poster’s comment.

Rip off i agree

i take them too tbh dont scan them

I thought all the money made from bags goes to charity?

So you are also a thief? Same question to you (or anyone else that just takes the bags), why do you think it's acceptable?

This was my question to* *Ddakji who said they also just take them: If you think the strawberries / toothpaste / chicken is too much, do you just take those too? Or is that somehow different because you consider the bags are rubbish, single use and used to be free?

Why is one okay but the other is not? Stealing is stealing, even if it's only 50p.

Exactly. And that means that, as with all theft from shops, the prices of everything the shop sells go up to cover those losses.
Stealing bags is the same as stealing food or any other goods, it's theft and is the behaviour of the scummiest people.
I can't imagine being the type of lowlife who does it then boasts on a forum that they do it.