Press reports

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The Independent Thursday, 27 November 2008

Supermarkets banish the plastic bag

Executives hail success of campaign against environmental menace

By Martin Hickman, Consumer Affairs Correspondent

Britain's biggest supermarkets say they are on course to reduce by half their use of plastic bags by Easter.

Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's and Waitrose are making progress in cutting the number of free bags handed out to shoppers in a victory for The Independent campaign highlighting the environmental threat posed by packaging. Plastic bags are made using oil and take hundreds of years to degrade in landfill sites, often after a single use. An estimated 13 billion plastic bags are handed out by UK retailers every year.

In February last year, six trade associations and 22 leading shops agreed to cut the use of plastic bags by 25 per cent by the end of this year. The initiative was agreed with the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the public-funded anti-waste organisation Wrap, amid discussion of whether the Government should ban free carrier bags. Supermarkets have moved free bags behind the till and put up signs urging the use of "bags for life". Reporting their progress to MPs this week, the stores said they had succeeded in reducing the number of bags and would go beyond their original pledge.

The Independent Thursday, 26 February 2009

Billions fewer plastic bags handed out

Shops' cutbacks could stave off government plan to charge for carriers

By Martin Hickman, Consumer Affairs Correspondent

Shops gave out 3.5 billion fewer plastic bags last year under a voluntary scheme which has, for now, headed off the threat of a government ban on free carrier bags. Figures from Wrap, the Government's anti-waste body, show that the number of plastic bags dispensed fell from 13.4 billion in 2007 to 9.9 billion last year, a drop of 26 per cent.

Wrap said that when taking into account increased recycled content in the bags, the use of virgin materials in the bags had been slashed by 40 per cent, well above the 25 per cent target set in 2007. Supermarkets have now agreed a target of reducing the number of bags by 50 per cent – from 2006 levels – by May. But the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), while welcoming the new figures, warned that it would retain the option of introducing a charge for bags if stores failed to honour their commitments.