Friday 29th February 2008 - "Plastic Carrier Bags!"

The supermarket, Marks and Spencer, yesterday announced that it would no longer be providing free carrier bags to it's customers.  They are hoping the newly introduced 5p charge will deter customers from adding even more plastic bags to landfill sites.  Of course, they could be really radical and 'get rid' of them altogether and customers would have to do exactly what my parents did when I was a kid (and I do now) and take their own reusable bags to the supermarket to put their shopping in.  If carrier bags weren't available this would have to be the case.  And of course, if something has to be available maybe it should be an alternative to the plastic carrier bag. When I was a kid, supermarkets made available the used cardboard boxes so that customers could use them to load their groceries into.  Or what about the States? Where all their grocery bags are paper?