Environmental campaigners have called on the government to learn from its own successes after official figures showed the use of single-use supermarket plastic bags had fallen 98% since retailers in England began charging for them in 2015.
Annual distribution of plastic carrier bags by seven leading grocery chains plummeted from 7.6bn in 2014 to 133m last year, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said on Monday.
Self serving checkouts ask you how many bags you want and charge for them in the UK. I have seen a growth in adults using backpacks, it wasn’t the norm before the bag charge.
I was in Maine recently and they charge for bags there. At Walmart, the self checkout staff member was also selling bags to the people who needed them, in addition to monitoring everything else that happens at self checkout.
In Canada we just fully banned plastic bags. Walmart just doesn’t offer any bags at self checkout anymore besides the reusable ones. It’s kind of annoying if you forget to bring bags but it’s not a huge deal. If I’m walking I’ll just fill my personal grocery cart, or if I’m driving I’ll just throw everything loose in my car. If I do need a bag I’ll just spend $0.25 on a reusable bag.
It’s really not a big deal like a lot of people expected
They have a lot of self-checkouts in the UK - there’s a member of staff on hand to help and they usually dish out bags although in some places you can just grab and scan a bag. If you wanted to not pay for one you could but the staff member and cameras are watching so it isn’t all relying on honesty.
