You’ll now pay anything from 10p to 60p for a reusable plastic bag at major supermarkets, with stores expected to donate the proceeds to good causes.
Supermarkets supplied 133 million single-use plastic bags in the 2022-23 financial year – a huge 99% reduction on the 1.33 billion they supplied just after the charge was introduced in 2016-17.
On the face of it, this is good news. You're certainly less likely to see carrier bags littering the road or caught in tree branches these days – but behind the scenes, is enough being done to recycle the plastic bags that are still used? And what is the most sustainable way to carry home your groceries?
How do you recycle plastic 'bags for life'?
Single-use plastic bags are a nightmare for the environment, taking decades to decompose in landfill.
Once your bag for life does break, you can usually exchange it for another one free of charge, with supermarkets sending the broken bag for recycling.
But this is where things get complicated. Most supermarkets accept all manner of soft plastics for recycling – not just shopping bags – so it’s hard to measure the quantity of plastic bags they’re recycling.
If customers are choosing to recycle or reuse bags at home for other purposes – for example using them as bin liners for general waste – the bags could still end up in landfill.
Find out more:Do shopping bag charges really fund sustainability projects?
When the carrier bag charge was introduced in 2015, the intention was for supermarkets to spend the proceeds on projects that benefited the environment.
The government’s plastic bag guide for businesses currently says: ‘Once you’ve deducted reasonable costs, it’s expected that you’ll donate the proceeds to good causes, particularly environmental causes.’
However, this doesn’t appear to be happening at every major supermarket.
Income from plastic bags at Tesco is treated as general revenue, though Tesco says it spends more than what it earns from plastic bags on its community schemes.
Asda told us it treats funds generated by plastic bag sales the same as sales of any other item it sells. Like all supermarkets, though, it does donate money to community projects.
Other supermarkets said plastic bag sales fund charitable projects, though these aren’t always related to sustainability.
Find out more:Which type of shopping bag is best for the environment?
When choosing a bag, the key thing to think about is how often you’ll reuse it. The more you reuse it, the more sustainable it is as an option.
A 2020 report from the Life Cycle Initiative (LCI), which looked at the impact of several types of plastic bags over 10 years, said: ‘The number of times a bag is used directly influences its environmental impacts.
'For instance, if a bag is used for shopping twice instead of once, it has only half the environmental impact per shopping round.’
Find out more:Paper bags
Paper is seen as being more recyclable than plastic, which might be why M&S has started selling reusable paper bags in its stores.
Paper shopping bags tend to be less durable than the plastic alternative, however. And according to the LCI report, a paper bag’s climate impact can vary greatly, depending on factors like the fuel used in the production.
Reusable plastic bags
Waste charity Wrap says you can reuse plastic bags ‘well over 50 times’ depending on what they’re made from.
When plastic bags are incinerated, the CO2 they release is harmful to the planet, whereas the CO2 emissions from incinerating paper bags are part of the natural carbon cycle, according to the LCI report.
On the other hand, if a plastic bag and a paper bag both end up in landfill, the methane emissions from paper bags will actually be more harmful.
Find out more:Compostable and biodegradable bags
On the surface, these seem like a good option. But biodegradable bags are thinner and weaker, so you’re less likely to reuse them.
Cotton tote bags
These tend to be the strongest bags people use for their shopping, but they’re only good for the environment if you reuse them many, many times.
According to the LCI study, you need to use a tote bag 50 to 150 times for it to have the same environmental impact as one single-use plastic bag. In short, if you already own a tote bag, don’t buy another – just reuse that one again and again.
Clearly, the question of which bags are most sustainable is very complicated. The only impact-free way of getting your shopping home would be to carry it without using any bags. But assuming you're buying too much for that to be possible, try to reuse any bags you already have – and always recycle them once they've become unusable.
Find out more:Additional research by Marianne Calnan.
source https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/are-supermarket-plastic-bag-charges-helping-the-environment-agq6s9e2Bo1I