In January and February 2008 I posted some articles about plastic bags found in trees and hedgerows around Waterlooville. As a result of my campaign, nationally supermarkets began a voluntary scheme to reduce plastic bags being handed out at the checkouts (ha, well I wish I had that much influence).
Supermarkets claimed that they reduced the number of bags they were handing out for free by (I think) 40%.
Is it just me that has noticed that after an initial effort to get checkout staff to reduce the number of bags handed out, the staff where ever you went, started going back to their old ways and automatically pulled out the bag with the assumption that you need one.
In some respects, I don't blame the staff, however even when you buy a small item, a checkout person will still offer a bag, even though the item can be carried or dropped in your pocket. This suggest management training is pushing them, along with consumer laziness.
So today the Guardian reports that bag use is going back up and Defra are preparing for legislation after a failure of the voluntary code. Something has to be done, leaving it to competing monopolistic institutions such as supermarkets, will not achieve the desired results.
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