Paying for carrier bags.

If the bag your raw meat or fish is put into isn't sealed, it is the work of a moment to tie a knot in it before packing it into your bag-for-life.

I wonder how we managed to survive life with no plastic bags at all? Meat and fish used to be wrapped in a piece of white paper, then newspaper, and laid in our shopping bag. Vegetables were bought loose and tipped into the bottom of the bag - prudent people kept a bag just for vegetables so that the earth from the spuds didn't get on anything else.

And no, we didn't spent our entire lives retching with food poisoning.

I've been making these crocheted bags for friends, better make one for myself! I use cotton yarn to make them colourful. Perfect for keeping in a handbag in case you buy a bottle of wine on the way home.

You won't get raw meat or fish in a reusable bag. Shops can put that kind of thing into a smaller bag and seal it.

I usually keep a stash of long life carrier bags in my car. I will miss having cheap carrier bags to hang on the door handle in the kitchen so as not to go out to the bin all the time. It's not that difficult to organise.

I am happy to reuse bags for most things, but raw meat bags cannot be safely recycled. You can't wash them safely. Chicken breasts for example, leak furiously, and the flimsy little bags they are put in at the checkout are not sealed and are no protection. So I will have to bin these each time, and worry that they will get muddled up and reused. Why couldn't we have clearly marked raw meat and fish carrier bags from the supermarkets, that aren't charged for? I would not expect these to be collected by the dot.com delivery companies either, hazard to the drivers after they have been sitting in someone's house for a week!

Well I'm going to buck the trend here and say that, if the idea is to help the environment, save wildlife and so on, 5p is nothing like enough to charge for carriers. Plenty of people, with trolleys piled high, paying £130+ a week to feed their families, are hardly going to baulk at shelling out an extra 75p for 15 carrier bags to take it all home.
Ban the flimsy carriers altogether, and have only stronger ones at 25p each, and people might just stop and think.

You expect them to make a profit on the actual clothing.

Actually, I have just read the shop cannot keep the money. Some goes to the Treasury(there's a surprise) and the rest must be given to charity.

It will be interesting to see what happens. (If I ever get off my fat arse sit-upon, and actually go out of this house. )

The 5p charge in Wales goes to charity.

It is good that there will be less plastic bags lying around which might choke animals. TBH.

Ocado do the refunding I'd the bag charge too. Including anyone else's. That scheme will surely cost a fortune to carry out, and that will be reflected in prices.

Stores use their carrier bags as a form of advertising with some being instantly recognisable. As other have said, will NEXT, M&S etc.. be happy when we all carry our purchases home in shiny black bin liner? Will the shops be allowed to take on the cost? For example charging us 5p less for a pair of jeans and then charging for the carrier bag?

As usual nothing is properly thought through. I use those flimsy little carrier bags to bag rubbish to put in my outside bin. They are pretty useless for bottles of wine anything heavy.

I have heard that our local authority will begin charging for emptying the green bin as from next year. Where I live most people have small gardens and many have paved them over. My neighbours on either side have paved both their front and back. Is charging for emptying a green bin (that is turned into compost and sold back anyway) not encouraging more people to "pave paradise".

If you are shopping on-line, it is worth knowing that Morrisons will refund your 5p for every bag you return to them (even someone elses).

of course they don't pay 5 p for them - just as if you buy a pair of jeans for £20 they probaly paid the supplier perhaps £7 or less. The whole point is to be a deterrent from taking 15 bags per shopping trip or more- as I regularly witness in when we visit UK supermarkets on visits, and do some shopping in town for clothes and other stuff.

Not 'aiming' at anyone jingl (and so glad you've been taking your own bags for yonks9- just saying I can't fathom all the fuss. If the Welsh, the Scotts and many other nationalities can do this, I am sure the English can manage too- as they are a clever lot ;)

5Live Breakfast was trying to make a big thing of the bag charge. I don't remember their doing that when the charge was introduced in the other countries of the UK!

Many years ago, I did refuse a FCUK bag in French connection, when they began that stupid campaign of theirs, and put their clothes in a Marks carrier.

I keep a set of these in my car boot. If I had my choice again, I would go for the shorter bags for shallower trolleys. The full sized ones are a bit heavy when filled, and also reach the ground when carried, as I am short.
packingsorted.co.uk/shop/
I think the original set is now sold by Lakeland.

Yes very easy to get a "bag for life" replaced once a tear or hole has appeared, I've never had a request turned down - well not in that respect anyway I'm not sure about clothes though, many shops offer a nice paper type carrier bag for clothing. Marks don't, I hadn't thought that one through, I don't think I'd want to put new clothes into a screwed up old carrier bag Maybe I'll bring my nice "East" paper carriers to Marks to carry their clothes home!

Elegran

Bin liner sales will shoot up. (And where does that the environment ) With fortnightly bin emptying you can hardly put the rubbish in loose. It would soon stink. Have they thought this through at all?

Civilisation as we know it won't grind to a halt because you have to remember to take a bag with you or pay 5p for one. Maybe if you had been storing all the free ones you got since it was known that this would happen, you could have staved off the vast financial impact of that 5p for another year or so.

For a big shop you would have to use the "Bags for life". That's ok. I presume the shops will still be allowed to replace those bags for free once they wear out.

That was to gj

Well don't aim that at me missis. I've been doing it for years!

Do you really believe the stores pay 5p each for them? Sounds a bit "plucked out of thin air" to me.

I have been buying bags for life since Marks and Spencer introduced charging for bags, not that I shop there all the time! I now never go out without a couple of bags, I am shocked at how many free bags some people use when doing a big shop. I often use Sainsburys and it really stands out there, maybe because their bags are orange. Having to pay for them will probably annoy some initially, but having seen how these bags affect marine life, I think introducing a charge is justified.