Mark is married to Jo and is a 23 year old youth and schools worker based in South Cave (near Hull). Mark spent 4 years as a youth worker in Peterborough whilst studying for a degree in youth work & ministry with Oasis.
I don’t go shopping that often (by this I mean a shopping centre style shopping) but I do know that when you wander around towns where people are partaking in the act of consumerism they are usually clinging onto a handful of plastic bags with a variety of brands and logos showing the world exactly where this particular consumer has been shopping.
It’s the same with supermarkets, you reach the checkout with a trolly of food (in my case 80% impulse buys and 20% what I actually need) and the (friendly?) cashier asks you if you could like some carrier bags.
I am well aware that I’m not describing an unusual scenario yet despite taking lots of bags (and then re-using a few times or just throwing away) we forget the environmental impact of them.
Jo has worked on a checkout this summer and the typical response of people being offered bags is ‘yes’ or ‘yes, I’ve left mine in the car/at home/ in my pocket but I cannot be bothered to move my wallet to get them out!’ and I’m as guilty as the next person. 9 times out of 10 when I go shopping and forget to grab the bags for life from my kitchen… I even think about adding some to my car but keep forgetting to help the bags make the transition from my kitchen to the car.
This forgetfulness usually results in me buying more bags for life.
The problem is that somehow we need to stop using so many carrier bags.
Both Sainsbury’s and ASDA have done promotions offering bags for life to customers for free and encouraging them to re-use them next time (although most forget!), when I was younger Sainsbury’s used to give you 1p back per carrier bag you re-used (before the days of the Nectar Card and Bags for Life) and this encouragement continues in the form of loyalty points for re-using bags in both Tesco (eugh!) and Sainsbury’s but not in ASDA who don’t have a loyalty scheme just cheaper products.
When Aldi first opened in Bexhill where I grew up I remember us taking our own carrier bags because they charged for them so the few times we visited Aldi we took our own or just put the shopping in the boot loose because ‘we weren’t going to pay 2p a carrier bag’.
Years on from that Marks and Spencer’s charge for carrier bags and a WHSmiths in Sheffield station do the same (I don’t think this is all WHSmiths) but this trend hasn’t caught on.
I think it’s time that we started charging people for carrier bags in order to encourage people to reuse their bags….hitting people in the pocket may make them think about reusing, it would certainly make me remember to put the bags in my car!
I am challenging myself to actually remember to reuse my bags from now on and will make the occasional reference to my success of this on my blog (although I appreciate that how I use my bags doesn’t make interesting reading!)
On a completely contradictory tangent bags for life are actually worse for the environment because they take longer to biodegrade….cotton bags are better and probably last longer!
