Saturday 24 April 2021

Bags For Life Are The New Diesel Vehicles!

Morrisons has said it will become the first UK supermarket to completely remove plastic carrier bags from its stores.
The Bradford-based grocer plans to scrap its 'bags for life' with customers instead being able to purchase reusable paper bags.

Remember when you were an ecological hazard for driving a petrol vehicle, then suddenly the exact same thing when you'd switched to diesel? Well, it's happening again... 

Paper bags, with handles, will be used instead - costing 30p and able to carry up to 35lb of shopping.
Until it rains...

But maybe they haven't worked as well as they were supposed to?
In the last year alone, Asda, Marks and Spencer, Morrisons, Sainsbury's, The Co-operative Group, Tesco and Waitrose sold more than 226 million bags. But this was 322 million (59 per cent) fewer than in 2018-2019, according to the environment department Defra.
This means the average person in England now buys just four bags a year from the main supermarket retailers, compared with 10 last year and 140 in 2014 - causing the sale of single-use plastic carrier bags to plummet by 95 per cent.

They've done exactly what they were intended to do. 

I can't help but think that there's no better reason to demand they now be scrapped than the desire of the Green fruitcakes to make us all feel bad about ourselves. 

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is simply the major supermarkets screwing the public. Consider:

Who issued the most single-use plastic bags for free?
What did it cost them?

Who has the advantage over the high street in lots of free car parking?
Whose customers can just unload stuff piece by piece into their cars?
Who is the driving force behind the current moves?

Follow the money.

MrMC said...

Was it not the Daily Mail that started all this ? and last time I bought their Mail on Sunday the supplements were covered in plastic bags and full of cardboard ads that fell out of the magazines

Stonyground said...

I just use the same set of bags every week. One of the bags is insulated with shiny bubblewrap and has a zip so you can keep your cold stuff cool. If the supermarket stop selling bags I can just buy them somewhere else or go to the bookshop were they have really good quality plastic bags that are free.

Greencoat said...

Rain won’t be a problem - 99% of supermarket shoppers carry their purchases a few yards to their car. Even the flimsiest paper bag will last that long.

Anonymous said...

I remember paper shopping bags and they were horrible, there was a very good reason we all took to plastic bags so readily, they are far far better bags!

Alan Scott said...

Stonyground: fine if you have a car and are able to go to the shop. But it's a different matter for us oldies who cannot carry all their weekly shop if travelling by bus (if avilable), and perforce have our weekly shop delivered; this now arrives at the front door in large baskeets which one cannot take into the house, so you have to unpack the items into another container - in whatever weather one is currently "enjoying" - and get them indoors.
May you never grow so old!

JuliaM said...

"This is simply the major supermarkets screwing the public."

Ain't it always the way?

"Was it not the Daily Mail that started all this ?"

Yes, for a 'right wing' newspaper, they can have some strangely 'progressive' campaigns.

"I just use the same set of bags every week."

I take the same set of bags to the supermarket in the car. It's...almost the same thing! Sometimes I even remember to take them in with me.😂

"Rain won’t be a problem - 99% of supermarket shoppers carry their purchases a few yards to their car."

But as Alan Scott points out, not every supermarket shopper travels by car...

"...there was a very good reason we all took to plastic bags so readily, they are far far better bags!"

That's 'progress', I guess!