5p levy on plastic bags

Asda merrily give as many bags as you need without a care. I take my own bags so I'm not deluged by plastic when I get the big shop home. Any bags that do come home are used as bin liners. I agree with charging for bags, I've seen folks in M&S using everything available to avoid paying for a bag!

Strange, really, plastic bags are discouraged in Wales, but our council changed from a recycling box to giving us plastic bags for waste to be recycled, and another for rubbish to go to the dump.

I am always surprised when we shop in England at the liberal abundance of bags given away. We save them up for when we give away apples from our tree - hoping they get properly disposed of afterwards of course.

Supermarkets in France stopped giving out bags about 10 years ago.

I have always hated the clutter of plastic bags and so I have tried to avoid them for nearly 40 years. I have big trolley bags that I take out for my weekly shop and I have a plethora of cloth bags I have been given over the years. I keep one rolled up in my handbag. Several tucked into the back seat pockets in the car and one hanging on the front door handle for DH to take when he walks down to the village shop.

I sometimes watch people packing goods into bags at the supermarket and they obviously have hang ups about different types of foo touching anything else, so a packet of tea will be carefully put in a bag of its own, or a tin of beans, as if they might contaminate each other. With some fresh food that is understandable, but I put everything in my big trolley bag every week without damage or cross contamination. I do not buy meat or fish in the supermarket but I can understand people wanting these in separate bags

I love my trolley bag too. I trundle it to the shops and back (about 1.5 miles) on days I don't have the GC and it's a great way of getting exercise and doing the shopping at the same time. Supermarkets here give 'green points' for using your own bags or reusing plastic bags, but I had to have a battle with Sainsbury's to get my points for my trolley bag.
No logic in that is there
Think these supermarkets only pay lip service to green issues when they are forced into it either by legislation or public pressure.

We have a large collection of cloth bags, mainly collected abroad. I gave some to Son when he started uni and he keeps them in his rucksack for shopping on the way home.

The big supermarkets in France do wonderful sturdy large colourful trolley bags, brilliant for taking stuff to the beach.

I love my little wheelie bag, a bright, colourful one, bought from Lakeland. If I'm in the car, I have a collection of hemp bags and string bags. If a charge on plastic bags works in Ireland and Wales - and M&S - why all the angst about levying it in England?

Traders in the small town of modbury in Devon have banned plastic bags in their shops. you can't even buy one!!

Yes, Modbury were in the forefront - well done that town!

DH thinks Waitrose bags are the best for the weekly shop, they have a firm base and sides and the handles drop over the side so that they are easy to fill, sturdy and rectangular so they stack in the trolley and car easily. I carry cotton or fabric ones in my handbag.

I am English, live in Wales and cannot understand why they are making such a hooha about it all.

I am used to taking none plastic bags to the supermarket as we lived in Spain for 10 years. A couple of years ago Spain started charging for plastic bags in supermarkets. My question is what will the supermarkets in England do when delivering internet shopping, as they use lots of plastic bags for the delivery.

I don't know, we have only had a delivery a couple of times ages ago and they used loads of bags, a single item in a bag. Not sure what they do in Wales now.

Home deliveries in Wales: you can pay 30p and they will deliver in single-use bags OR you can have it delivered in crates and unpack it as fast as possible while they wait for the crates.

Single-use bags? Do they spontaneously combust when emptied...?
You still have to pay 5p for the flimsy ones - I use them several times!

That's what they call them! Which makes sense of why there are so many littering the countryside

I was in M&S last week, forgot my bag, so put a tub of coleslaw in one coat pocket, and a pack of ham in the other.After I had paid, I kept thinking a security guard would descend on me before I got to the door.Thankfully not.The bags for life are good, but my family all seem to pinch them from my cupboard for various reasons, so I constantly have to buy more.I imagine all their cupboards at home are bursting with them.

Well, perhaps customers shouldn't be so literal minded! Plenty of uses for them, as has already been said...

Sorry, roses, crossed posts - mine was of course in reply to margaret's.

Yes we don't get many now, of course, but always find we need some for one reason or another.

As the plastic bag debate will no doubt come to the fore, I'm hoping someone can explain to me what the problem is with plastic bags but not other types of plastic that our foodstuffs tend to be encased in?

Why aren't plastic bags recyclable? I think at one time we could put them in the recycling but certainly can't now. Ocado delivers in plastic bags and collects them on the next visit. No fuss.

Here shops sell you large strong reuseable paper bags, with strong handles- they last quite a long time and then go into paper recycling.

I am flabbergasted when we are i England to see people filling 10 or more plastic bags every time they shop. Find it shocking I have to say.

We can put plastic bags in the recycling bins, goldengirl, so it must depend on who your local council's recycling contractor is.

When I go clothes shopping in the UK, I always take my own bags. The cashier always look at me as if I'm gone mad when I say I don't need a bag!!! Even if they can be 'recycled' best not use them in the first place, due to production materials and energy, transport, and more transport and more energy to recycle.

The 3 Rs Reduce re-use and only then .... recycle.

We can recycle ours in the roadside collection or in a collection point at Sainsburys. I'm really embarrassed when I forget my own bags as they are usually in the car and I only realise when I've unloaded the shopping. Paying for bags will no doubt help me remember them!

Last I heard they were agonising over whether the 5p should apply to "small businesses" thus dragging out the process of introduction. How do you define small. I predict a complex piece of legislation...